The Wrath of Seven
by NumeroCinco
Summary: Set after the Fall of Five, the Garde have been virtually decimated in their latest battles, but there is still hope for the future. They've all lost people, but they can still struggle forward in this dark and difficult world. They can still fight. And they will fight. And they will win. Lorien will Rise again.
1. One- Fallout

The Wrath of Seven

We're tense. Everything's tense around us- the virtual armada landing off to the right, the swamp and the giant tree that held Five's chest behind us, a giant patch of ice and dead plants that encases Five, cradling himself in any way he can with one foot impaled, and-

No. I don't want to think about it. We're all invisible, but I still feel the tear drop down my cheek. As soon as it leaves my face, it turns visible and drops to the ground, freezing instantly into a little ice droplet.

I don't want to think about it because- no. No reason. There's nothing not to think about. It's just me, Six, and Nine, who, I presume, is still slung over Six's shoulder, passed out or something. I remember that he couldn't stand back before-

Before we engaged Five. That's what happened. We engaged Five and we fought and now I have a new legacy. Nothing else happened. No one else's dead. Too many are already dead, Adelina and Hector and Crayton and now-

_Damn it_, I need to get back in the game. I can hear Six rasping from beside me, obviously having to concentrate hard from her split skull. I grope out into open space with the hand I'm not gripping Six's with obvious white knuckles with, and when I feel her hair I run my hand up, and It feels wet. Blood. New blood.

I focus, dizzying but not falling as I press my Legacy into her, trying so hard to get her well. The icy, cold feeling's back, but different than my new Legacy, this one comforting in my palm. She sighs and I can tell it's working. A warm feeling comes up from my core- she's saved me a bunch of times, after all. The least I can do.

"Thanks," I hear in the quietest whisper from beside me. "Now follow my lead," I feel her hand move sharply backwards, and I follow suit, not seeing me or her, just seeing the Mogs swarming all around us. I look back once to see them trying to unceremoniously tug Five free of my trap, but it's only making it worse. I can hear his agony from here, and I can't help but give off a sly smile. Eat it, bitch.

We're on the other side of the tree now, out of sight for now while they search for us. It's a giant tree, really, standing in the air up a hundred feet and a root system covering the entire little island we stand on. What did Nine say? A great place to camp? Sure, sure.

And with that, we're visible again. Cowering behind a giant tree, an army on the other side. "Here, take him," Six flops Nine down on the ground, who moans slightly in response. He's beat up all over, legs swelling up and head bleeding and arms broken branches off the trunk. I don't know what to focus on first.

_C'mon, Marina. Do it right now_. I take one hand on each leg and feel the bones move under me, working my way up to his torso. There's bruises and bumps everywhere from being hurled across the air and dropped out of the sky from Five's vicious tentacle of an arm, and it scares me. Another Garde dead so soon after…

I feel the bones shift back where they were a second ago, his ribs virtually just cracking again under me. _No, no, no!_ Get back there, stay there!

The ribs move again, and I can't tell if it's a friendly direction or not. But they're moving. I get up to his neck just as Six comes back from who knows where, materializing in front of me. "Get it done, Marina," she soothes. "We gotta get outa here quick. They're massing around Five."

I remain silent in response, eyes closed, sweat beading down my forehead. _Bones, move. Bruises, go away. Skin, mend. Blood, evaporate. Bones, move. Please, bones, move faster!_

All I can hear is my breathing. It's fast and rapid and heavy and all scary. This is all just scary and sick and- No! I gotta focus on Nine. He doesn't look so bad now, not so beaten up. His arms are better, and now I grab both sides of his skull and send a giant jolt of iciness down my arms into him, and suddenly his eyes open.

His eyes open.

I lean back in relief, just a temporary feeling, however fleeting, as he looks up at me, confused. "huuhha?" he asks.

"Quiet, N-Nine. We're still in- in troub-b-ble," Shaky. My voice is way too shaky.

He sits up and looks around. I finally do, too. The tree still sits there between me and the army, and I don't even dare think about poking my head out of the side. Other than that, it's the same as it was when we arrived- a swamp. Water there, mud here, barely any grass on our little islet. Just mud and dirt and Nine's blood in a trail right too… us….

I grab Nine by the shoulders, throwing him to his feet. "Nine, move, now," I shove him forward toward the water, and he doesn't seem to understand me but runs anyway. It gets dark quickly, and I jump at the sharp and violent cracks of thunder that clap all around. _Quick, Marina. Where's the Fanboat_.

Doesn't matter. Just run. Nine hazards a look behind, then moves both his arms up in a sweeping motion, probably telekinesis. I don't look back, but he keeps doing it, like he's swimming through the air or something. We get to the beach, and he turns around, teeth barred like an animal. "I'm not going anywhere…"

I hold my hand out in front of me, freezing a little path across the water out into the center of the bayou. "Nine!" I shout. "Get out here now!" He turns around and sees what I've done, them concedes and runs after me. As he runs, I can see through his torn pantleg the glowing orange circle shape on his calf, and… I… I mean, it's Eight. That's Eight's symbol there.

_No! There's a better time for mourning!_ I look through my blury vision to the Mogs staring us down from the edge of the beach, raising their guns and blasters and cannons and whatever else at us. I throw a mind-punch at them, at all of them, and they topple over, some of them big holes appearing out of nowhere in the center of their chests.

_They killed Eight. They slaughtered him like Adelina and Hector and everyone else I've ever cared for. _They freaking deserve what they get! They're monsters! I let my own anger emerge out of the fear, taking hold and grasping me tight, and I'm like a remote, invisible ninja over there, telekinetically attacking everything that moves.

Nine's sudden movement startles me cuz I almost forgot he was here. He seem sto like my idea, because he's punching and kicking and slashing at the air, and over on the land Mogs drop to ash in all directions.

And with no warning at all, Six is suddenly standing on the beach, shouting "Marina, let me on!" I stop maiming for just a second to freeze a bridge over to her, and she runs up to us just as the ice disappears behind her in the Florida sun. I guess it's cuz I'm still standing here on the ice raft that it's still solid as is.

"Guys, we need to go. Like, now," Six says over her own thunder. "There's just more coming."

Nine talks for the first time. "No. Here and now. We're gonna stop running and show Good ol' Ra how it's done!" As if to make a point, he twirls his first in the air and then punches nothing, and on the shore three Mogs fall at once.

Six stands her ground. "No. No, we can't. Five's out of the picture, and we lost a Garde. We can't sustain anything more. _We've gotta move!_"

"Nine, She's right," I plead. "C'mon, we need to go…."

He says nothing for a while, just kicking and slashing as if he's out there in the battle, and he kinda is. Kinda. And Six is still letting it rain lightning on my other side, still fighting even though she wants to run. "Fine."

A single word, but Six takes it. "Marina, bridge us over to the mainland as fast as you can," and I do. Sprinting at full speed, I freeze the water under me in a weaving line and feel Nine and Six hot on my heels. Within the minute we're almost a mile away and gaining fast toward the end of the bayou and the place where we first saw Five's… creation.

We break onto the land, me blazing through the trees and them each cutting their own path through, jumping and tucking and rolling over fallen logs and tiny ponds and the like. In ten minutes we stop to take a breather and regroup.

"God, that felt good," Nine says, sweat on his brow and his voice a little raspy, but otherwise not winded at all. I'm pretty much the same, and whenever I wasn't back there, like when I got a cramp or something I'd just stick my hand to my sweaty side and heal it right up, untwisting the muscle. So I'm fine.

Six _fwuumps_ onto the ground, staring ahead. Her blonde hair's frizzy and her face is a little pink, but nothing much. I sit down next to her and Nine across from me, forming a little circle. We're all silent, and I think I know what we're all thinking about.

Six grabs my hand and looks at me apologetically. "He was a good guy," she says quietly. "I think we'll all miss him forever," I look down a little. _A little? He was like, my only happiness or something sappy like that…_

Nine's picking at his new scar, his skin settling down but still bloody from it. I already ran my hands over it when I was healing his legs, so I guess there's nothing I can do. "Yeah," Is all he says. He's cooled off from the excitement of the moment, and now gazes drearily in the distance. "Five…. I just can't believe it."

My adrenaline rush is fading fast, and I don't want it to. I don't want to be brought back to reality, where people die all the time and I just stand by, useless. Useless Nurse Marina, healing the wounds she could've prevented from happening in the first place. Useless Nurse Marina, trying so hard and still not being vital. It probably would've been better for the cause if I'd been the one to jump in front of Nine back there, Eight was important. If he was Pittacus, then we've already lost! That's vital!

Six's hand rubs me up and down the back, and I realize I've curled up and I'm heaving quiet sobs. "I- I think I'm just gonna sleep now," I say, even though it's the brightest time of the day out here.

Six keeps rubbing my back, but her voice turns serious. "We've gotta keep running. If we stop, they'll catch up. Let's make it to Miami by nightfall, and then we'll rest," she's soft when she talks, dunno if for her or me. Am I really this fragile? I mean, it's like she said. Did we really expect to fight a war without any deaths?

No. No we didn't. All of Lorien's already dead, as well as everyone who's ever defended us, the lone survivors. Five said, just before he murdered Eight, that he'd called the Mogs to go _take care of _Chicago. John's not dead, cuz we don't have yet another scar, but who knows about the rest? About our _sick palace_? About Ella- she's a sister to me, as much as Six is. What if she's dead? We'd never know- she's not an Elder. She's not under the Charm. No new scar would weep with us is she goes.

I sit up, and Six stops rubbing me. "We've gotta get back to Chicago. Meet up with John and the rest who stayed behind, and regroup. Fight again."

Six nods solemnly. "Yeah," then she winks at me. "Let's focus on Miami first."

**_So. How'd you guys like it? Is it good... bad... if it's good, by all means, keep reading! I'd love you if you did :D_**

**_If it's bad, please tell me why it is. I know a lot of people will come here, read the first chapter and be done. If you're one of those people, what pushed you away? What can I do to make it_ better_._**

**_ That's all for now._**


	2. Two- The House

2-

It's dark when we make it to the very outskirts of suburbia. We can sprint as fast as we want, but as soon as we make it to where people will see us, we turn down the speed to a light jog. I'm getting really tired, but we don't have that much farther to go.

"So," Nine starts. "Where are we goin? Wanna find a house or something?"

I turn to look at him. "Really? You want to take somebody's house? Let's just get a motel," First time I've heard my voice in a while, and it sounds weak. Weak and quiet.

"Listen to you," He says, voice softer than usual, but still mocking. "You're tired. I'm tired. Six hasn't even talked in a while," turning around, "You're still there, right?"

"Yup," is all she gives. It's a single word, but it drips bitterness.

That's all for that conversation. We just keep up the pace, running down the completely abandoned highway, in and out of the yellow streetlamp light. It's peaceful out here- not a sound except the wind brushing the trees. Spring is finally in full bloom, and this is the first opportunity I've had to observe it. The palms shade the highway on both sides, and past that a forest of budding plants and darkness ensues. Even with night vision, it's still dark. It might be exhsustion? Maybe? Maybe it's… I dunno. It's just dark. Figure that one out.

Eventually our highway splits off into two highways, heading into downtown Miami. We take a random exit, then slow to a walk on the sidewalk of a two lane street with houses on either side.

"Take your pick," Nine motions to the houses on both sides.

"Ummm…," I stutter. "Is there any way to tell which one doesn't have people in it?" _We don't want to get caught. And we don't wanna just go kill somebody over their house for a night, right? I mean, right?  
_ Without answering me, Nine walks up to a house. It's a dull yellow in the pale light, with a white roof and pretty little white trimmings, with a big wooden door standing up a walk and a white painted garage door below the door.

"This one satisfy you, Seven?" Ugh. Whatever.

I shrug. "Why not, right?" _We're gonna save the human race. The least they can do is let us have their house for a night._

He smiles sharply. "That's my girl," and he heads nonchalantly up the path to the front door. Reaching out with a single hand, he unlocks the door. I hear a _click_ and he looks back at us. "Ladies first."

He doesn't even move a muscle, just opens the door with his mind, and I trudge through with Six behind. I'd say it's dark inside, but I can see everything clearly. The two sets of stairs, one going down on my left and the other going up to what looks like a dining room on my right.

"Ahh, Seven, find a light in here," I turn around to see Six and Nine mumbling forward, into the house, arms outstretched in front of them. _Yeah, that._ There's the white switch on the wall next to the stairs, so I flick it and nothing changes. Still as bright as usual. "Thanks," is all he says. I guess that means they can see now.

We've finally found a place to sleep, and because of that I'm suddenly almost too tired to stand. I go crash on a couch off to my right, past the stairs, and that's the last thing I see before it fades to black.

The sound of a gun being cocked wakes me up. My eyes fly awake to see the light streaming in through the windows. It's morning. I also see that Six is still snoring on the other side of the room and Nine is nowhere to be found. But what really wakes me up is the fat old man in boxers and a faded tank that's standing over me, a shotgun held in his firm hands, pointed right at me.

I sit up lightly, stretching, and this seems to startle him. "Stop moving! Get back down!" he shouts. _Nah, I'm kinda hungry._

I stand up, and look over to him drudgingly. "Whadayou want?" It comes out slurred. Guess I didn't sleep enough.

I assess the situation. I could yank the gun right out of his meaty hands. I could, like, high jump kick him right in the face. That'd make an impact. I could play the damsel, with the puppy dog eyes and ask him what he wants. Nah, he'd get the wrong impression on that last one.

"I said GET DOWN!" The guy screams, but he's not standing firm anymore. Six's eyes pop open and when she sees the scene she jumps up. She's way on the other side of the room, maybe twenty five feet? I dunno.

"What's going on!" She shouts, and the guy snaps the gun to her. Her eyes meet mine, and at first I see a hint of fear in them, but it fades quickly and she looks back at the guy, smirk returning. Grim smirk, but smirk.

"What?" he looks at me, her, and me again, the gun following his gaze. "Who are you people? How are you in… my house!" He pretty much screams that last part, and as he does so, a loud bang sounds around, resonating on the high drywall ceilings. Just before I dive to the right, I see the little black pellets of shot stop midflight and hover in the air. I try to tuck and roll, but there's not enough space and I hit something, hearing crashing sounds and turn around, hair in my face, just in time to hear the second bang.

Smoke fills the room. It smells- surprisingly- like spent gunpowder, and suddenly it's kinda humid, too. Taking it all in, I see Six standing next to me, offering a hand to let me up. The air is hazy, and I can see the sweaty dude lying on the floor, dead, shots riddling his torso, turning red slowly and staining his tank.

"Whaaa…," I look at Six. "Did he turn the gun around or something?"

She smiles again, and her eyes are something along the lines of _oh please_. "He shot at me, I shot back. Simple enough," and with that, she stomps away, just as Nine comes flying up the stairs, jumping out into the smoke and head turning full one-eighty. When Six brushes past him, and his eyes fall on the dead guy, his tense muscles relax.

"Oh."

I still don't get it. Why's he dead. Six didn't have a gun, did she? _No, she didn't. But she had her shots hanging in the air_. That's it! The dud fired, and she must've stopped those rounds and flung the ones she already caught back at him! I plop back down on my couch, smugly satisfied.

Then I remember. I remember where we are. We're in a stolen house and we just killed the guy who owned it. We killed the guy! He wasn't doing anything wrong, just defending his rightfully owned property! He's probably a just law-follower, just to spite me. We just killed one of the good guys, didn't we. Why! Are we really better than the Mogs? They kill cuz they want, when they want. Without asking questions.

Well, it's like I was thinking last night. We're saving the world, it's the least the guy can do to let us have his house. Let his kids live-

What if he had kids! We just killed a dad! Aww, now I feel even more terrible. Great, Marina, just great. We just ruined the life of a just law-follower and his wife and four kids, right? God, we're terrible people. _But we are saving the world_.

It's like the little devil and angel on my shoulder. _Will both of you just shut up!_ Ugh. I lean backward and with a casual flick of the wrist, bust out all the windows. A shard lands on my leg, and I yelp, then I press my icy hand into it and it's not a problem anymore.

"Hey, guys!" Six. She's upstairs, by the sounds of her voice. "You need to see this!" I hop up and leap up the whole staircase, bounding after Nine down a dark hallway that branches off of the dining room. The space is cramped, maybe seven feet high at most, with the walls pressing in. There's beat up wooden doors leading to rooms on both sides, but at the end one on the left hands open, its white light casting a, well, whatever you call the opposite of a shadow on the floor.

There's a big bed in there, and a TV mounted to the opposing wall. An oak dresser with one of the drawers open is across from the entry way, and another opening leads to what looks like a bathroom, by the linoleum I can see on the floor.

Six is spread out on the big bed, head resting on the dark blue wall behind it. She's got a remote in her hand, and is looking at us skeptically. Nine flies all superman-esque onto the bed, and I just sit down on the corner, looking up at the TV. There, paused, is what looks to be a CNN report on…

Wait a sec. That's John Hancock! And… The penthouse is gone! The picture shows the girders and wiring sticking out of the ninety-seventh floor, and then the top floors, they're just gone. Fires rage in the remaining upper floors, and as Six unpauses it, the guy starts talking.

_"It is not known just what took place in the John Hancock center, but It is all too evident that this is the work of some terrorist organization, displaying its stunning resemblance to Nine-Eleven. However and whatever happened, there have been no casualties in the disaster so far as of this evening, but they are still pulling wounded patrons out of the ninteyith through ninety-seventh floors, as well as many tourists from the observation deck. All that can be said on the story is that we must thank God that no life has been lost in this devastating blow to Chicago. Here's Darrel Curtis with the story,"_

Then the picture changes to a short guy in his thirties wearing a light blue raincoat that covers most of his face and arms, except his hands, one of which is holding the mic that's thrust up into his face. He's on a rooftop of some sort, because only half of the tower sits behind him, the top in clear view. _"Yes, right you are, Johnny. Behind me is a scene of unspeakable cruelty, that only matched with, as you said, the events of September Eleventh, two-thousand and one. It is, I do believe, a miracle that the tower is as intact as it is, considering the extent of the damage to the top floors. The police have analyzed the scene, and in their preliminary report they ponder the question as to why the damage is, indeed, focused at the top. It's almost as if, something, or someone, was trying to destroy the penthouse, and not caring about what happened to the tower itself. Whatever it is, it is truly a confusing scene, only made more by the sighting of what appear to be two young men, aged fifteen to twenty, being flown out of the burning tower by a hawk, with what appear to be boxes floating all around them, just before the top section falls away to the Magnificent Mile below."_

The scene changes again, to what looks like a cell-phone camera, and in the brightness of the evening you can see, very clearly, John and all our chests, along with somebody else, being flown away on what I can only guess to be Bernie Kosar. They circle the tower once, and I swear I see John wave his hand just as the tower goes crumbling down and they speed away, off over the city and disappearing in the tall buildings.

Six rewinds the video and pauses it when John's face comes into view again. His hair is ruffed up, and BK's claws dig into his shoulder sharply, with blood seeping slowly out. He seems more focused on other matters, though, looking ahead at the tower. I turn back to Six, looking at me like, _I told you so_. _What? She never told me anything_.

"So. I don't know about you guys, but I say we get back to Chicago as fast as possible. I dunno where John is, but as long as he has that tablet thing, he'll be able to find us. We just need to get to an area where we can meet up. And do it quickly. Regroup," she slaps her hands down onto the mattress in finality. "My two cents."

"But who's that other guy with him?" Nine tries, and Six, sighing, just goes with it, playing the clip again. They zoom out a little, and she pauses it, and I'm pretty sure I involuntarily gasp. It's a Mog. Its black, soulless eyes watch John as he swings his arm, straining with whatever effort he seems to be putting in.

"Not John, too," Is all I can say. "John and Five have turned? We don't stand a Fucking chance in hell, then!" Nine says loudly. "How can he do that!"

"No, he wouldn't. He's John," Six counters. "He's just…. Maybe he doesn't know it's there?"

"But BK does! BK's holding the little bitch in his talons!" Nine.

"There has to be a reason. He's John, Number Four. He wouldn't just betray us. Besides. There've been better times to do it."

"No, no. Maybe he and Five did a coordinated strike! He takes out all the humans and our base while Five takes out us! I knew it. I knew he was bad when I first met him," Nine looks so mad he could spit. "All that shit about Henri and Paradise, it was never true, was it!"

"No, cuz I was there! I was in that battle!" Six says defensively. "Besides. Why would BK go along with it? He's Loric, too."

"BK's just John's tool. BK'll follow John to the end of the Earth," Nine gets up. "Son of a bitch!" And with that, he storms out. And I'm left looking into the Mog's empty, never-ending eyes. 


	3. Three- Some Grudges

3-

Down on Michigan Avenue below, I can see swarms of Mogs rushing out of the little plaza that stands out in front of the building. Like Spiders. Like an infestation of spiders. Ella's down there somewhere, still comatose, still completely unaware of what they're doing to her. What are they going to do with her? What could they want with her? Is Sektrakus Ra some kind of sick pedo? Yeah. Into kiddy alien. That's not weird at all.

"So what, are they all gone or something now?" Adam simply shrugs at me as I turn around and look at him, then to the chests piled up randomly on the floor. One of them belongs to a dead man. One of them belongs to a valuable soldier for Lorien who lost his or her life today. The Lorien Nine, once the Lorien Six, now the Lorien Five.

"Aaahhh!" I stomp down on the floor so hard It sends shock waves over the whole floor and a piece of the penthouse slides away onto the ground below, dust from the rafters shaking down into the air. I need to know. Who it was. What if it was Six? She's been here since the beginning. She's pretty much my best friend. How would I handle it if she died? What about Eight? I swear he's the only one who kept us sane these past few weeks. We would've ripped each other apart without him. And Nine. What about him? He's like a brother to me, a deranged, crazy brother. With greasy hair and a taste for older women. How could I lose him? How could we lose anyone? There's only so many people we even have to work with, against an impossible number at impossible odds.

"AAAAAAA!" I wave my arms up in a flourish, ripping girders and wall segments off their mounts and flinging them out into open space, and the roof above me suddenly slopes down sharply, creaking loudly before falling still. Adam jumps back into the safety of the elevator, his black eyes revealing nothing about his thoughts like Six's. His expression not changing loudly and hugely like Eight's. And he doesn't really have Nine's same flourish to it. Just a furious sidestep to get away from a giant hunk of wood that would've turned him into ash.

I've gotta know. Henri said that once we die, our chests unlock and all the stuff turns to ash. The Mogs are retreating, so it's not like they're a problem, and BK's probably up there dead on the roof. Bitterness. That's how it feels. The Mogs retreat, but they take a piece of me with them.

I scramble down to the chests, recognizing mine and throwing it to the side, realizing what I've done just in time to catch it with my mind before it flies out the huge hole in the side of the building, and set it down gently. Then I look at the three chests sitting here. Marina's, Eight's and Nine's. If none of them open, it's either Five or Six. And I _reall_y hope it's Five.

I try Marina's. I tug at the lock, not really knowing what I'm looking for. Nope, stays firm, not moving even when I stand back and launch a piece of chandelier at it. So it's not Marina. I turn to Eight's, and it looks the same as it always did. The Loric symbol for eight is carved onto the top of it, as well as various other markings and Loric symbols I don't know what mean on other sides. I raise my hand to the lock, half praying, half ready to go kill something small and big at the same time. I twist my fingers around the silver plated lock and jerk down.

And it falls off with a _ding_, bouncing across the floor before coming to rest. Eight. It's Eight. Oh my god he's dead.

It's like Henri all over again. The Mogs have ripped a part of my life away. They've ripped a piece of my salvation away. It's like… It's like nothing. Having a friend killed. Maybe it's because I wasn't there, maybe it wasn't. Who knows. Who knows how he died, anything. And I'll never know, will I? I've got to find the others all over again. We're split up, and I'm all alone up here at the top of the world.

Except I'm not alone. Cowering off to the side is Adamus Sutekh, the _son of a Mog General_. I can't control myself. I look up at him and jerk him up to the ceiling, holding him in place from across the room. "TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!"

"W-w-where who-o are?" He's completely terrified. He's shaking, and I revel in it, holding him out over the edge of the building, jerking him up and down violently. He does a full upchuck down on to the crowds below.

I stop shaking him, but run forward towards him and leap of the side of the building, levitating myself right up to his pale shit of a face. "THE MOGS! THE GUYS WHO'VE KILLED EVERYTHING!"

He shouts right back in my face. "I can tell you, just please, trust me!"

I spit on him. "Ha! You want me to trust a Mog! Hear that, ghosts of all my loved ones? He wants me to trust him!"

"Please! Please! I've given up everything to be here today!" When I only laugh and mutter a _good for you_, he looks down. Then he says something very lowly, and I can't even hear him.

"What was that!" I yell.

"He turns his head up at mine, eyes blank and ahead. "I said I have your Chimeara!"

"Ha! BK's dead! Your daddy's guys killed him! Want me to show you?" I levitate us as fast as I can up to the roof, where I see a scene of complete devastation. Mogs lie dead all over the roof, and right in the very center, Bernie Kosar lies in a puddle of his own blood. He's some kind of giant fleshy tank, lying there unmoving. I float us over to him and drop Adam down onto the ground, while I land silently next to him.

"BK? You here with me?" My voice is unexpectedly soft and hoarse. Something else I can blame on Adam. But even so, at the sound of my voice, BK twitches. "BK! C'mon buddy, morph into something small so I can heal you quicker!"

He groans from under me, but still he glows white for a second, then suddenly he's a mouse. I take him up in my hands and send the legacy through my hands, becoming warm and cold at the same time. His wounds are so small this way, it takes only a few seconds before he jumps up to meet me happily. "Bernie Kosar! I can't believe it!" Oh my god! BK! He's not freaking dead!

He's a beagle now, and he licks my fingers happily, washing off his own blood with his soft tongue. I turn around to see Adam struggling to get up , and I rush over to him, screaming how sorry I am. As usual, he just looks up at me, looking confused and determined and sad and every other emotion you can have. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! Oh my god!" I focus on him again, repairing his legs in a heartbeat. He just stares soullessly at me.

"Should I say thank you? Or should I say Fuck You!" He shouts at me. I hold my arms up in surrender, and he jumps to his feet and the whole roof starts vibrating.

"Dude! Enough, okay!"

"No! All I've done for years is try and help you Lorics, and when I finally meet up with one of you, you terrorize me and break both of my legs! I can't even believe this!" His eyes stay the same, but his demeanour and body posture say obvious agitation and… I can't quite put my finger on what else. Betrayal, maybe? I dunno.

"Cool off for a second. I'm gonna go get the chests. We're leaving," I say bluntly, not asking questions. BK trots after me, leaving Adam alone on the roof with his thoughts.

I pick up the four chests, carefully taking Eight's discarded lock and stashing it in my own chest , then float it all back up to the roof. Adam's just sitting there, looking at all the dead bodies around him.

When he sees me, his back straightens, and he begins. "One trusted me unconditionally, and I tried to save Two and Three, but I couldn't!" He shrugs. "One's cepan was Hidle. She was a strick woman, but you'd get to know her eventually. Two was Maggie, and she was so small and fragile, and I had to watch her bleed out. My very father killed Three in the jungle while I watched, then my own brother pushed me down a ravine," His eyes meet mine and I try to resist but can't. I see the desperate look on Two's face. She's in an apartment surrounded by Mogs, a gentle slit cut in both her wrists and her neck. I see three, straining under the giant fist of the General. I see One flashing in and out of existence as Adam saves Malcom from certain doom. Then he looks away and it's over.

"I'm really sorry, if it's any concelation," I sit down next to him. "I was pissed. And I'm still pissed. Cuz' Number Eight's dead, ya know? But I still think we should go now," I try. He shrugs.

"Whatever," he gets up slowly and I call BK over.

"BK, we're gonna need a quick escape. Can you do that?" In response, he morphs into a hawk, wings spread wide in front of me. "Beautiful," I lift the chests up again and look to Adam. "Ready?"

He shrugs again, and BK lifts us up into the sky by his giant talons. I look back at the penthouse sitting in ruins there, and a thought crosses mine. "BK!" I shout up. "Let's circle it once! I gotta do something!"

He complies, and from the distance it's difficult. I reach out and feel every nut and bolt there, holding the penthouse in place. I grab onto them with my invisible fists, and yank upwards and to the side, and it slides away down, crashing to the ground below. We can't let anyone see what's happened here. The police are gonna investigate, and they'll find out what happened. They'll see all our training centers and all that… It's better to just destroy the evidence.

I sigh. That's not home, plummeting down onto the buildings. That's just a camp. Yeah. A camp. That's all I can think about as we swoop away. _

_**So, boom. Yeah, it's getting late, and I should probably get to bed now. Just wanted to get this up cuz I've been working on it for a while and all that jazz. Anyway, if you like please tell me, and if you don't, please tell me that, too. I can get this criticism and tell what I'm doing wrong, and it'll be just that much better. **_

_**The flipside, if you liked it, it always brings a smile to my face when somebody says that they enjoy reading my work. Cuz, ya know, it's that mystical warm feeling on the inside. Kay. Sappy stuff. **_

_**G'nite.**_


	4. Four- Dusts of Chicago

4-

**_Little note here, I'm kinda listening to Ready Aim Fire on YouRepeat, so if this chapter is overly violent, that's why._**

It's a disgrace down there. The Mogs sweep out of the bottom like, football players. That's what I wanna say. They're trying to get the ball, Ella, to the end-zone, Lake Michigan, and past the other team, everyone else. It's all happened so fast that the police aren't even here yet, and they're already halved the distance, hurdling cars down there.

I search for Ella as BK dodges a plasma shot from down there. She's gotta be in the front somewhere, the guy who has her leading the charge. But no, there's like a united front pushing down there, tackling over the all the people and crossing an intersection. One guy gets the idea, and drives his car straight into the horde, and he _trumps_ over the Mogs, the dead ones flashing ash behind him like driving in sand. He drives a straight path right through them, and out onto the other side of the street where he just keeps driving. Away and away and away from there.

Three quarters. Quick, John, find her. She's gotta be down there somewhere. I tell BK to swoop back over them as we do, Some of them point up at me. They're talking, and the ones near the middle immediately flip- wait.

They all flip girls over their shoulders. All of them. Hundreds. I turn around to see them, but no… No, it can't be. They all look like Ella. Every single one is like a carbon copy of Ella slung over their shoulder. I don't risk a fireball, because I can't have any freaking way of knowing! Which one she is!

"What are those!" I shout to Adam over the whip of the wind, pointing at the Ellas.

He looks down, or at least I assume he does, cuz he tilts his head down. He doesn't actually have pupils? There's no other way I can see that. "No idea," His faint voice shouts back.

I, I, I dunno. What can I do? The only way I can go get Ella is to fight them for her, and if every single one has a fake Ella as a boy shield, then how do I know which one to not kill? I can't. I give the whole scene one last, lonely look, the order BK to get over to the zoo. That's where I told Sarah I'd meet her and Sam.

"Where are we going!" Adam.

"What!"

"My car's that way!" He points off towards the river, down south.

I scoff. "Are you kidding!" Pointing north, towards the zoo, I say, "Sarah's that way!"

"Didn't you hear me earlier! You know, when you flung me off the side of the building! I said I have your chimaera!"

It clicks. It suddenly clicks. I was too enraged to see it before, but what was once dark has now come to light. He wasn't talking about BK! He must've liberated the others! The chimaera from the second ship! The ones that shared the ship with Ella! Oh, ohhhh. This is a game changer. Eight may have been lost, but damn! I mean, "Damn!" Whoops. Did I just say that out loud? Oh, who cares? This is gonna win the war, right here! Eight will not have been lost in vain! God Damn!

"I can tell you're on board," Adam shouts slyly, if you can even shout slyly. "They're over on the curb on Wacker!"

"Hear that, BK!" and in response, we do a full 180 and head south instead.

"It's a tan sedan! Old model!" He says, and we swoop down real low, the cowering people on the ground looking up at us with fear, afraid of another penthouse dropping down on them. I wave at them as our shadow covers them for a second. God, I'm psyched! Oh my God! It's not over! We're not out yet!

"There!" He points to what is, just as he said, an old but well-kept sedan. Not that old, maybe a few years. It's actually pretty nice. Not as nice as Nine's finest sports car, though, I'd imagine. Wow! Was it really just a few minutes ago that I wanted to go rip the heart out of everything?

BK lands and now he's a dog, not a beagle, but a Great Dane, standing over us as Adam fumbles with the keys. I press my head against the door to see, like, six or seven animals in there. It's so hard to keep track of them, but two are birds of some kind, one's a monkey, and the rest are animals that must be Loric because I don't recognize them. They seem excited to see Adam, and one in particular jumps out and glows white while he becomes a grey wolf that nuzzles him in the leg.

Wow. Just wow. I pop the other door open as Adam jumps in the driver's seat and suddenly they're all talking to me. _A Loric! A Loric! _And _Adamus! Adamus!_ And all sorts of other things. I shove the chests in the back with them and they all hop up and down on them and play with them happily. Haha. An army of Chimaera. Who knew?

"The zoo, you said? Adam inquires.

"Yup," I say, grinning as I watch them frolic. BK is back there now, but the grey wolf still sits on Adam's lap, looking up at me questioningly. _Who are you?_

_I'm Number Four_. I tilt my head to match its, and it growls and tilts its head back the other way. _Fine, be that way_.

_Who is the other?_

_Bernie Kosar? He's my Chimaera. He's been here since the beginning_.

_The beginning? What do you mean?_

_Well, I'll tell you what. While we're driving, I'll recap. Got that?_ _But only if you tell me your story after_.

So that's what happens. We're driving through a wrecked downtown, people running all around us, Mogs already stomped away into the Lake or wherever they went, and I'm sitting here talking blissfully about beating up Mark James via telepathy to a wolf. Remember those hopes of being normal? _Bye Bye!_

He tells me his name is Dust, and that he was on the second ship from Lorien. Nothing I didn't already know. What's new is the story after- about how Crayton knew they couldn't keep all of the Chimaera, so he released them into the wild, knowing they would survive and that one of the Nine would have a device that would let us summon them. He says he didn't know what to do in the wild, and he wandered Europe for ages, as a rat, and a stray dog, and a bird, and even hitched a ride across the Atlantic as a fly on a ship. That's when it goes downhill, but before he can continue with his cliffhanger _Then they found me somehow_, Adam looks at me, then snaps in my face. "We're here, Four, Do what you need to do then let's get outa this city."

"Oh? Yeah. That," I get out of the car and search the lot, and suddenly Sarah burst out of a cherry red corvette sitting in the opposite side of the lot. I sprint as fast as I can and I'm across the lot within the second, lips meeting. "Miss me?"

"More than ever," She says in return, and ushers me in the car. I hold back, though, and a confused look spreads across her face. "Problem?"

"It's just… The chests are back in the other car," I absentmindedly mumble, not knowing how to introduce Adam. Ugh. What if they shoot him on the spot? What if they… No. They'll trust him cuz I trust him, and all that. I walk back slowly across the lot, pondering my thoughts, Sarah trialing behind asking me where I'm going. Huh. This could get interesting.

**_Hey people. So, this was originally intended as a shorter chapter to wrap up Four and Adam's peril in Chicago, but I kinda got stuck on writing the last bit there, if you can't tell. One, I don't like romance, two, I don't like sappy stuff, and three, the most important, I blew out my headphones with Ready Aim Fire. They don't like 100%._**

**_Anyway, I'm probably gonna go back and edit the whole ending sequence out once I come up with something. But this is just for closure, you know, get the scene done and move on. I've already got plans for what to do to Six and Seven and Nine, and it's fun for me, so it must not be fun for you people because it involves them getting shot at, but ya know, First thing's first, right? Right. Anyway. _**

**_So, long story short, I need your guy's always lovely input as to what happens after they fly over to the car. It just… goes in the toilet from there, in my opinion. Whatever. Cinco out._**


	5. Five-Higher Waters

5-The sun is bright in my face and I pull the little flap down from above me to cover it. It's good, but not nearly enough as the paneling on the front of our truck still reflects it, so I pop the glove compartment and shove my hands in there, looking for sunglasses. There's a bunch of papers and crap, as well as some survival knives and a lighter. This guy really knew what's up, didn't he. I pull out one of the knives and unsheathe it, showing the blade off in that over powered glint. Six nods her approval from next to me.

"Nice knife Mar, but I never thought you'd be one to go randomly stabbing deer or whatever," she says, and I look at the knife again with new eyes. Is this what that's for? Stabbing animals? Innocent animals like the man we took everything from? Ruining lives at will? I mean, that's what we are, right? We're soldiers, after all. We kill a guy and wreck his house, and then why not steal his Ford, I mean right? Why not go out and all be crazy badass serial killers? And thieves and liars?

Ugh. I overthink everything. That's what Nine says, anyway. He's asleep in the back seat, feet propped up on the head of Six's chair. I don't think she knows they're there or otherwise Nine'd be dead by now probably.

I sheath the knife again and rummage around a little more, avoiding the knives and even a small handgun with a single clip in there, but thinking back to that last one I take it out and set it on the little table thing in the middle. What's that called? Center Section. That makes sense.

Yup. Not good with cars, remember?

Anyway. _God, sunglasses would be great right now_. I'm bent forward, so the sun's in my eyes even with the flap down. Ugh. I give up and just grit and bear it, sitting back and sighing. I think back to the last few hours- they've been beautiful but boring. We immediately realized that the police must've found out about the gunshots or whatever from earlier, cuz we heard the sirens, right?

So we get out of there as fast as possible, leaping into the guy's truck and speeding down the highway we came up last night, turning north up the coast and heading as far from Miami as possible. So, yeah. Now we're wanted? That won't help things any.

The scenery around here's beautiful. I'd heard stories about I-95 and all that, but it's way cool in person, with the palms ringing both sides of the road and the occasional vista off to our right. The highway turned east a little while ago, so that's why the sun's in my eyes, but the GPS system installed into the dash says that we'll turn back pretty soon, like within the mile, so sunglasses really aren't that important.

In a few hour's we're in Jacksonville, just driving right on past and as far away from Florida as possible. I'd assume we've got a warrant out for us by now, so there are no ifs- we're going to get pulled over eventually. It's just a matter of when and how to handle it.

How will we handle it, again? Will we ruin another life here? Will we strike another innocent person down doing their job? Are we really those kinds of people? I sigh _again_. That is the question, isn't it, Marina. That is the question…

I tap my fingers against the glass of the window, smudging it up a little. Leaning in, I breathe out hard and it fogs up and I wipe it away with a section of my shirt, but it only gets a part of it. I look at the foggy shape in the window, blocking out a section of Bealls parking lot. Huh. I take my finger and draw a cute little _8_ in the space, then look at it again. Thinking.

Remember when, Mar, back in Chicago? That time that he took you out for hot dogs? You guys went shopping, and when you got back Nine was so pissed that you'd left without his permission? Then he challenged us to that fight and all? What was that? A week ago? Hmmm.

I look at Nine now. I know that it should be him dead. I know that I'll miss Eight forever, but for now I think, I think I've gotta but my big-girl pants on. There'll be time for mourning later. What'd Six say? There's always casualties in war? Something like that.

I'll never come to terms with it. It just… It shouldn't have happened. I mean, really? Really? God, I spent eleven years of my life worshipping you, where are you now? I mean, seriously? We really need you out here!

"You okay?" Six. She's looking sideways at me, concerned, but her eyes dart back to front when she gets honked at for some reason or another. We pull up to a stoplight and she looks back. Her always changing eyes are full of thought, full of concern. She's a sister. That's what she is. Not an ally or anything, definitely not a bunkmate. A sister. Remember, Mar, back in India when you thought she was trying to steal Eight? Then she was so happy when we… kissed? Remember that? Remember _all_ of that moment? The feel of…

No. Don't think about it. I look back to the _8 _in the window and quickly wipe it away, then say "I'm fine," curtly to her. She stares at me for a second more then the light turns green and she sees all the cars move ahead around us, so she turns away and steps lightly on the gas. We still jerk forward.

Six and Nine switch later, while pumping gas at a Podunk town called Darien. Nine is much harder to talk to than Six. When I bring up the old man, he shrugs and says _it had to be done_. When I bring up Five, he goes rambling on about what a _fucking son of a fucking bitch whore_ he is. When I bring up the scenery, he says something like _more of the same_ or _it's nothing like Loric coasts_.

Whatever. I just want to sit here and talk to myself anyway. Maybe just rest my eyes a little, it wouldn't hurt, right? I mean, Six is snoring, and Nine was snoring earlier, so that makes me the only one who hasn't slept yet here. I might as well _try_ at least. Just close my eyelids, rest for a little bit, all… that…

It's dark outside. There's shouting. I can hear Nine's voice, loud and obnoxious, and Six's, not calm and not calculating, but loud and obnoxious as well. I try and push them away, curling up to my seat belt, then I think. _Why are they shouting_? What do they have to shout about? _Certainly they have enough to shout about, Mar_. Still.

I look up, and Nine shouts, "Aww, look who you woke up!"

"Whaaa?" I try, but my voice is still… I dunno. That feeling you get when you just wake up, and your mouth feels dry and wet at the same time? Yeah, that.

"No, you did! With all your crazy yapping!" Six shoves him from behind, and he swerves us into the other lane. The headlights of an oncoming car shock me awake and suddenly I'm fully upright, a crazy cracking sound coming from all around me. Ha. That's all the moisture on the windows freezing up. Great.

"What's going on!" I scream at the top of my lungs.

"I'll tell you what, Marina! Nine is freaking insane!"

"You're the one who's insane, Six! Think back to Five! Think what he did to Eight! He was a total bro, and Five was a total bitch! Four's always been a bitch, see the similarity!"

"John _Smith_ has never done anything to harm ANY GARDE!" She screams back.

"Seriously, WHAT'S HAPPENING!"

"Seven, let me tell you _exactly_ what out fellow Loric over here is saying," His voice is a sudden calm. "Seven, she thinks that we should play the damsel, and sit and wait around somewhere for Four and his Mog friends to find us with that crazy tablet thing! I say we fight it! Don't let them find us! Keep moving! Don't stop!"

"No, we've gotta get back together!" Six makes another mad grab for the wheel, and Nine jerks it out of the way and into the other lane again, scaring me even more. "Marina, what do you think! John needs us right now!"

"He doesn't need anything! He needs to be killed like Five should HAVE been back in the fucking Everglades!"

"NO! I won't let you anywhere near John!"

"Good! Since we're never gonna see him again, THAT WORKS OUT!"

"Guys, STOP IT!" I scream. They both shut up and look at me. "It's, uh, just that, um, there's so few of us left and all, and, well, umm…" Now I shut up. The car's in a tense silence.

"Marina, what do you think?" Six is the calm one this time, and Nine's hands grip the wheel, white knuckles.

"I, uh, think… that maybe… Nine's right…," Wrong answer.

No, _stand up for yourself, Mar_. Remember those eyes. Those pitch black eyes. They reflected your soul only because there was no soul inside them to take up the space. They stared deep inside, and yet didn't look so far at all.

Nine _whoops_ and hold out his hand to hi-five, but Six rips it down with her mind. Nine breaks free of her invisible grip, and lets go of the wheel with both hands for a second to rub his wrist.

"Marina! What! Remember John Smith! You were so into him when you researched him on the computer and that! Remember! Come on, Marina, remember, please. John's a good guy, it's just that there's a reason he's got the Mog with him. Maybe he's a traitor like Five?"

"Like hell he is!" Nine shouts. "They'd never support us! They'd stab any of us the first moment they got! Any one of us! And they've done exactly that in the past! Do you even remember Two, One and Three? No? Me neither," his grip is loosened, now a slack display of bravado as he drives with the one hand and throws the other arm casually over the headrest. "C'mon, Six. You'd be a valuable ally to have, I've seen your work, but I'm not taking a car with a traitor, and if Lorien isn't in your heart, you might as well go invisible and fly right out the sun roof now!"

"Lorien is ALL THAT'S IN MY HEART!" She shrieks. "ALL OF IT!" she puts her hands up to her eyes and I guess right that she's crying. _Six? Crying? No way._

"And yet you want to go hang out with traitors," Nine takes his finger and puts it to the dash, then whips it back quickly making a hissing sound. _Buuurrrnnn_.

"No, YOU IDIOT NINE!" She looks up eyes red. "JOHN"S NOT a traitor, and he NEVER WAS and never even WILL BE!"

He scoffs. "Yeah, right. I saw the Mog. You saw the Mog, right, Seven?" I say nothing for a minute before I realize he's talking to me, then nod. "See? She saw it, too."

Six lunges at Nine, shouting something like, "_Pull this car over now you asshole_!" and he blocks her flight. She lands in my lap, and the look in her eyes when I meet them is betrayed.

"No, Six, maybe… Maybe it would be smart to go see John," I try, but she's not listening anymore. No, she's just trying viciously to subdue Nine and get ahold of the wheel. We're in the other lane now again, and I see another car out in front with their brights shining. "Guys, guys, GUYS, GUYS LOOK UP PLEASE!"

I can see the car try to get out of our way, but the wheel is being wildly lashed in all directions, and we're all over the two lane highway, so it can't really avoid us. I hold my knees up to my face, bracing.

It happens so fast. Six hears me finally, and her hair whips up from beside me and I can see the headlights reflected in her pupils. Then there's an explosion.

An explosion of sound, and explosion of feelings. I feel something crush my leg, another hit my abs hard, knocking the wind out of me. I get a face-full of airbag, and we're airborne, and we're falling, and suddenly the roof caves in on us, and I hear something snap, and my vision is getting starry, and then the explosion is over. Suddenly as it began, it's over. And I'm still conscious.

I open my eyes, not even fully realizing they were clutched shut. I instantly feel my iciness spreading, readying itself, and I tug my left arm free from, what is that. I can't tell. I shrug something off my left arm and press it to my scalp, feeling the wetness and the blood there. Then, conjuring up all my magical Lorien strength, I push the roof up and whatever's got my legs pinned down out and I force my head up through the hole. We're upright, but we obviously weren't that whole time. The cold night air hits my like a slap when I get up, pulling myself free from there.

I hold myself everywhere it hurts, in my abs and legs, where giant gashes and pieces of shrapnel have imbedded themselves. I even clamp both palms together at one point because I'm pretty sure my right one is swelling up, as far as I can see in the moonlight.

I look around for Nine and Six. They aren't there. "Guys?" Uncertainty. That's what I feel right now. _Wait a second. They're still in there, aren't they_?

I run back there and tear a door off the car. The driver's door- lucky draw. Nine falls out and onto the ground, knocked out by a still bleeding blow to the head. I fix that up as fast as I can, along with a major swelling section right above his ribcage, then throw him aside, diving back in to the flaming wreckage for Six.

_Where was she. Where was she when we hit. She was… on the Center Section, trying to grab at Nine. Is that where I'll find her?_ Wait… That thing I shrugged off my arm earlier, that wasn't… was it? Was it! It, no! No, it can't be! I rush over to the other side, hurdling the car, and rip that whole side off, but she's just not there.

I yank my pantleg up, but no, still four scars. She's around here. She's gotta be around here. Please let her be around here. Then she's there. She materializes out of nowhere on the ground in between my two halves of the car, lying in what looks like the very center of the whle scene. _She went invisible? Why!_

I scream over to her so fast a sonicboom erupts from the place I was just standing. I gasp when I see her. She's got the whole transmission system right through heart. What! No! No! No, this can't happen! I yank the bloodied innerworkings out of her and she gasps and stumbles to my feet. I press my hands to the hole, and it closes slowly, but not fast enough. _NOT FAST ENOUGH! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE, GOD, IF YOU'RE THERE, LET HER LIVE!_

Too late. Too late. I feel the same burning sensation in my leg from a day ago, and the light goes out of her eyes. She goes limp all around me. "_NO! NO!_" I shriek, hugging her warm body too my, hugging it and crying at the same time. The burning, the searing, is no problem for what I'm feeling. I feel dead. I feel less than dead.

"_COME BACK! COME BACK!_" I look at her, holding her at arm's length, and her head droops, hair falling down. NO! NO! I feel a surge of power, almost like electricity, coming from my very core, and I hug her even closer, and the wounds starts to cover itself. It starts to regenerate itself rapidly, closing as I watch. I don't even feel it, but instead of searing it feels like my leg is suddenly frostbitten to no return, freezing right off my body. I panic and feel around her, feeling her. Feeling her face, hoping for a sign. She suddenly looks just fine, like nothing in the world happened.

Her head whips up, hair tossed back and she screeches wildly, then settles down, breathing heavily. Her heartbeat is quick when I feel around her neck and hands, but I don't relax. I pick her up and drag her over to Nine and plop her down. Suddenly I'm so exhausted. Suddenly it feels like I can't even move I'm so tired. I can hear the sirens in the distance, the cops and the ambulances. _No, I can… let them get us… The Mogs are with the US… they'll find us… _

That's playing in my screaming skull as I pick them both up by their shirts and run as fast as I can into the brush, jumping straight into the trees on all sides and running. Running. Running… running… running… running…

**_ So, yeah. Long story short, a couple of my friends on Goodreads were talking about somebody getting a raising-the-dead legacy, and I though, hey, what a cool idea. So, yeah. That's this. And, not to sound cliché or anything, but remember to fave, follow and review!_**


	6. Six- Trapped in the Open

_**Hi guys, so this is coming from after I released Chapter Six(this) earlier, what are you guys thinking? I mean, There's like, no reviews lately lol. Am I doing good work, bad work, all that? What's good and what's bad? Kay. Thanks all. Read and, as they say, enjoy.**_

6- It's the light again. Pesky light. It's bright and in my face, shoving its invisible and yet so incredibly _visible_ hand through the big wooden door with fading red paint on it. These little red paint flakes lay scattered down by the bottom of the door, where it meets the dirt. Dirt. And hay, scattered around with the flakes.

I lift my head off the ground lightly, feeling… sticky. That's it. The whole right side of my face doesn't feel right. What's wrong with it? It feels… hard? Sticky? My hand subconsciously explores it, and when I see it it's covered in a mixture of dried blood and bright brown dirt. Huh.

Pushing up off the ground, I spin around and flop on my back, and- _damn_, for some reason that hurts a lot! I mean, this pain goes shooting up my back!

Gritting, I push up higher, into a sitting position, and press my icy hand into the small of my back. _God, that feels good, good job Mar_. Haha. Yup. Nurse Marina strikes again.

Wait. Wait. Nurse… that means healing crap… that seems… I dunno. That seems familiar? That's how I can describe it? I blink, clearing up the gak from my eyes and look around. I'm in a barn. It's smelly as a barn, and the roof is high and rotted and there's those upper levels standing above us, holes in their wooden floors. There don't really look like there's any animals in here, I guess.

Wait a sec… I'm not alone here. There's, is that Six? She's laying discarded off to one side, curled up. And… the long black hair and stocky build gives it away, it's Nine, laying way over, propped up against a big wooden pillar, head drooped to one side. I just look at him for a second. _He looks so peaceful, doesn't he_?

It's there that it all comes flying back. The memories hit me like a punch to the face. I see the lights of the car all over again, I see the darkness and the moonlight and… And… and Six, bent over, with a giant hunk of metal sticking out her from both sides.

Her chest heaves up and down hard, and suddenly I'm over there, turning her over and pressing my healing hands into her chest to fix it. But it looks fine. Nothing's wrong. Her eyes snap open, and she doesn't register me. She just stands up and I go flying back across the barn, landing off to Nine's left.

"God, Marina! Don't freak me out like that again!" She screams at me, glaring. Her eyes piercing right through me.

I see it all again, with new eyes. The argument. The crash. Then… Six. Dead. I felt the scar, God. I'm telling you, I felt the scar form, and then it iced over and disappeared. I'm telling you, I'm telling everything, that happened. It did.

My right leg's already up, though. No, wait, it's actually… torn off… huh. Yeah, it's gone. Four scars, too. That fourth one…. No. No, _occupy yourself_. I stick my fingers up into one of the holes there, making it bigger until it finally splits and forms this divot at the bottom of my jeans. I hold up the ripped-off piece and blow it into the mildly-cold March wind. What day is it even? How long have I been out? When we stole the car, the date on the TV cast was March Twenty-Second. What's it at now?

I look back up, and Six is looking at me like I'm an alien. Well, _I am_. But, I mean, her disgust is visible. What? Did I really freak her out that much by waking her up? Her mouth is open, but teeth closed, and her jaw moves up and down like she's chewing cud or something. Then she shakes her head and looks around at the barn just like me when I woke up.

Nine looks alright. I remember him from last night too- healing him halfway then jumping back to find Six… dead. To find, Six, dead. How could she be dead? Four scars. Still there, the one still dark red and scabbed over. But I remember. I remember the shocking, electric feeling I got, how the gaping hole where her lungs should've been reformed so quickly, it was like I blinked and suddenly it was all normal. What happened! What!

I let Nine be and get up, taking it all in. The smells of spring are hear all right, and I sneeze once, then twice, then three times. Pollen. Gotta love it.

Six is just standing there in the middle, holding one arm with the other, staring off into space. I've never seen her so lost before- so confused. She's always been in control of herself- always. Now she just looks scared and _so confused!_

"Hey, you okay?" She doesn't look up at first, but then she closes back in on reality and her eyes are on me again.

"Yeah, I'm fine," the focus is back. The determination is back. But it was gone… where did it go… "Get him better, will you? I'm gonna go, take a walk or something," she trails off, stands there for a second more, nods once, then walks briskly out the big door with the flakes under it.

Nine looks… fine, to be honest. Not really damaged. I must've mended him sometime between when my memory goes dark last night running crazy into the woods and… here. Yeah, what did happen there? How is it that we're here? How is it that everyone's okay here? I don't remember healing Nine the rest of the way, but… You never know.

Ahhh! Why can't the world just be simple sometimes! Why does it always have to be so damn complicated! "Why! Why!" I shout at nothing.

The air gets heavy around me, and I see the red paint flakes disappear in the sudden ice that's everywhere inside the barn. No, ice, back off now, don't need that…

Breathe. Just breathe and it'll come back. Just… breathe heavy. In, out. In, out. In, out. My feet get wet here, but I keep breathing, eyes closed. In, out. In, out. In, out.

There. Calm now, see? No problems in the world. Nothing's wrong at all. It's not like all your friends and family are dead and there's an evil race of aliens hunting you and all your friends that _aren't dead yet and Counting That You're Still Hungover!_

Darn. Not only does all the water freeze, once again, but when I open my eyes there's a gigantic ice-stalagmite reaching up towards the sky, shooting fifteen feet high out of nowhere.

Nine's not awake yet- surely that would've done it to anyone else-but I can see his breath in the abrupt cold. So he's fine. Job done. I'm gonna go outside now. Get some fresh air and all that.

As I'm walking out, Six is walking back in, and we run into each other. I knock her down, and she falls to her butt and slides around on the ice. I guess I stick to it. Noted.

"Hey, watch it, will you?" I offer her a hand to stand up, but she pretends it's not there and pushes herself up, just to slip and fall again. This happens a few more times before she gives up and punches the ice so hard a spider web of cracks erupts all the way around my stalagmite, splintering up it and knocking the fragile tip off. It falls to the ground and shatters into a million tiny water particles.

I rush out. The air warms up so fast it's not even funny. It's like being inside a freezer in there, and I guess it is, really. A freak show of a human icebox.

We're still in that forest I ran into last night, in some direction from the highway. The sun's already halfway across the sky and its warmpth stops my shivering better than anything else could.

No. Not everything. There's one other thing that could be here that would take away my shivers faster than the sun, because he was always brighter to everyone than the sun. _No._ _Don't go there. It'll only tear you apart again._

We've been holed up in that barn for a week before anyone even thinks about moving. We're all a little broken up over everything, and I think the silence and solitude is good for your soul. It heartens you up.

No one really talks. We pass in and out of consciousness, maybe you're awake when somebody else is, maybe you're not. It doesn't matter. We hardly even acknowledge each other. The days pass like blurs, the stars moving over us as we sit stagnant.

Occasionally I think about things. Actually, that's like all I do, that or go exploring around. There's actually an entire abandoned farm here, complete with a rotted to crap house and animal pens and even the rusted shell of a tractor. The house and tractor interest me, and I go inside them and see them, see the lives they contain. But for some reason I can't get near the animal pens. I was over there once, I saw the slaughter house, too. I saw the skeletons of dead animals laying, starved, in the pens, helpless, and can't help but wonder what horrible fate they had to endure. But that's not all. When I really get close, I suddenly feel energized and tired at the same time, and lights crackle in the edges of my vision and I hear odd humming noises. I've seen death as many times as the next guy, but… It scares me. It really does. What is it?

Another time I'm out at night, a few days later, laying peacefully in the woods looking up at the stars. I find Lorien and our sun easily, and I imagine it there. Brown and grey and dead, not staring back down at me. No, it's not staring back because it's dead. It's more than dead, it's gone. It's never coming back. How could we ever go back? What could we do?

These things are all buzzing through my mind when I hear a sudden bark and a growl. A low, rumbling growl. I can see perfectly clearly, the candlelight of my Legacy and the moonlight. It's a wolf.

I panic and rush to my feet, getting into a fighting stance, but it's not angry at me. It's chasing a rabbit down. It's running after it, and it leaps out at it and yelps as it hits itself on a log, but it still catches it in its powerful jaws.

The life goes out of the rabbit instantly and it goes limp. I just stare at the spot where the rabbit was, where the angry dog caught it and killed it. As I stare there, thinking about the life of the rabbit, the static and hums are back. A light noise in my ears, nothing much, but it still is enough to make them pop, and the static sparks at the very edges of my vision.

_What! No! Not again! _I scramble backward, confused, getting away from the wolf and the dead rabbit, jumping up and sprinting back to the barn. By the time I get back, the hums are gone. So are the sparks. But the sounds… the yelps of the dog, the bites, the jaws. I imagine the jaws tearing flesh and, without warning, I vomit on the ground.

That reminds me just how bad my stomach's been ripping me in half lately. Seriously, we haven't really eaten in a week, and the water we've got is just my legacy condensing it out of the sky.

It's dark on darker leaves, looking just like a puddle of water and nothing more. That scares me, too. A lot of things scare me. I hear the wolf howl at the moon far in the distance, and that's enough for me. I jump back into the barn and slam the door that no longer has flakes under it shut.

The next morning we're all up at once. Nine is lacing his shoes up, I'm watching him with curiosity, and Six is crouched over something over there. I let Nine's shoes go and walk over to her, tapping her on the shoulder. "What are you doing?" My voice sounds so strange after a week of silence.

She looks me up and down, then gets up to reveal a backpack. It's torn and has holes in the edges, but it looks like it'll hold. It might be the little boy's backpack who I've seen in the pictures inside the abandoned house. "I'm leaving."

Two words. Two words are enough to throw me off nowadays. Is that what I'm really made of?

Nine looks up. "What? Wait, what?" His voice is gruffer than mine. He stands up tall, but he's noticeably thinner. Not as thin as I feel, though, and he doesn't look crippled with hunger. If I really had to guess, I'd say that he's been hunting. And not sharing. What a joy.

"Yup. I, uh, can't be a prisoner here anymore," she looks at the door longingly. "I know John and Sam and Sarah and Bernie Kosar are out there fighting a war that I need to be a part of now. You guys can come, you guys don't have to. But I'm going," that's it. That's all my best friend in the world says as she starts walking towards the door that will separate her from me for what I can only assume to be a long time.

I don't even have any shoes on, but I run in the mud after her. It stopped being dirt a long time ago. "Six, wait, don't go, please,"

She doesn't turn around. "Marina, if you're coming, then get out here. If you're not, then don't come. I don't care," her voice is so collected, so strong. I turn back and see Nine, back to lacing up his other shoe. Not even caring about anything.

He's the one who was going to let you starve. He's the one who wanted to see death all around him. The very image of death these days freaks me out, and I can't explain it. Aren't I supposed to be a warrior?

While I was thinking, the door slams shut. Six leaves me here. No, that's not going to happen. I rush out after her, praying she's not gone already, that she's not invisible. He isn't. She's walking casually towards the edge of the forest. "Six, wait! What about Nine!"

"Nine can stay in that barn and fuck himself for the rest of his life!" Six calls back.

That's it. That's it. I chase after her, bounding straight up to her and walking side-by-side, and she finally smiles at me. Even though the twigs hurt and I'm not wearing shoes, I smile back. Her arm's thrown around me, and she whispers to me, "Sisters gotta stick together," and I laugh. An image of Nine's face flashes in my mind once, and then one of the Mog that John was flying with.

Remember what the sisters used to say? Everything happens for a reason- always does, always will. Well, there's a reason behind this chaos- organization and reason. And what's the reason I suddenly change my mind? I dunno. But we still take off running into the wilds.

_**Cinco here, so, this was kinda tough to write and kinda not. I'm sorry if it's boring to some, but I needed a catalyst. For what, you'll see. But that's all to come.**_

_**As always, review, fav and follow!**_


	7. Seven- Bro Tank

_**Helooooo all my adoring fans. So, anyway, Chapter Seven! Boom! I can't tell you the title because i'm still thinking of one as I write this, but hopefully it's good and right entertaining. Yeah. **_

**7- We break out of the thicket** and onto the highway moments later. I've got swigs and crap in my face and eyes and I'm pretty sure I swallowed a bug while we were springing through that forest, that dark forest. Light filtered down through the leaves and grass and roots and dirt covered the floor, but it was still dark. It had an… aura? That sounds stupid. I'm glad we're out, though.

"What now?" I state the obvious, and Six holds her thumb up in response. Yeah. Hitchhiking. Great idea. I wonder what kind of sick creep is gonna stop for two teens on the side of the road. We can take them, I know it. It just might be a bit… shaking. That's a good word. Shaking.

"We go," It doesn't take long for somebody to stop for us. I watch the cars go by in a sort of daze, wondering what they're up to. They're all people, too, running errands or going on vacation. How many of them will be in Florida by the end of the day? It has to be April by now… is that spring break? I think so.

They're all people there and we're just two chicks chilling on the side of some random highway. We're not anything to them, and they're not anything to me. Just more of the kind of people we're trying to save- the ambiguous, I guess. Take that with a grain of salt.

The car that finally pulls over is this beat-up old pick-up truck. It's rusted and like, from the seventies or something, with no windows and faded white cloth seats. Sitting on said torn cloth seats are three high-school aged guys, one taller than the other two by a head with thickly greased black hair, tanned skin and sunglasses with silver rims. He's the one driving, and he's the one to hop out first when he shuts the engine off.

When he rounds the corner of the truck I notice that he's wearing a bright pink shirt with cut off sleeves that says **BRO TANK **on it in grey letters. Cute. I can't help but give a smile- slight. But a smile.

Is this the kind of guy that Sarah and John were talking about? What is it… Mark James? Is this guy the kind of guy that John beat up and Sarah broke up with? Do I _really_ want to get in that truck?

The two guys who hop out behind him, one on our side and the other on the road side, are, like I noticed, shorter. They're both the same height when compared to each other, though… weird. One's got this baseball cap on backwards and his face is pale but bright, with jagged features. The other one come out and stands next to the big one and, huh. Jagged features. Weirder.

I look between them a few more times while they walk up to us. At the one with the baseball cap, then the one without. No way! They're twins! I've never met a pair of twins before!

"You ladies need a lift?" The Bro Tank asks, then lets out this smile that shows off his twisted yellow teeth. Dude! Put some braces on that crap!

"Depends, hon, if you're willin to give one," Six says, faking a southern accent. She's actually pretty good, too. I see her cross her arms from my peripherals and do the same quickly to mimic.

Bro Tank's eyes are plastered on her, and so are both the twins. It's like I'm not even here! What, do these guys not like me or something? I can't imagine what I look like right now… beat up thinner than I've ever been, heai probably tangled with a few branches stuck in here and there. Six is just as beautiful as always, maybe a little frizz in her dyed hair, but it's not enough to complain about.

And I've got on my torn clothes with no shoes. I bet I look like a country girl, or a wild girl. Somebody who's been living in the trash for the last year.

No. I don't _care_ what some random high school boys think about me. They're just here to see if we want to come with them- probably going on spring break or something. They're probably here just to see if any of them's getting laid tonight. I chuckle under my breath as they're talking- I'm not even paying attention. Funny though.

I don't care. I don't care… but my eyes still wander up to those thick arms, on full display from the Bro Tank. Eight had full arms like that. Muscles all over… bulging…

"Isn't that right, sis?" Six asks me out of nowhere.

I look up to her, startled. That guy didn't notice me staring, did he? I hope not…

"What?"

She nudges me with her elbow. "I said, we're in need of a lift to Raleigh, right?"

"Oh. Yeah. Big things to do there…," Damn, that doesn't sound realistic. Made less so by my _lack of freaking shoes!_

"Yup. Big things," Six rolls on the balls of her heels, then comes to rest and snaps her finger into a point. You guys wanna help a doll out, once?"

Bro Tank takes a step forward. "You sure you don't wanna come to Florida with us? I hear it's so nice this time of year! You ever been there?"

Six takes a pause before shaking her head briskly. "Nope."

The twins and Tank keep moving closer. "Aww, ya sure, babe? We'd love you to come. It'd be real, fun!" and "Oh, come on, don't give me any of those no's. Sure your parents wouldn't mind if you stepped out for a day or two! I _promise_, we'll have you back here on Tuesday."

_Liar_. I can see the look in his eyes, the way he makes more eye contact with Six's chest than here actual eyes. _Freak_. He looks over to me and looks me up and down, checking out his prey. He looks at my jeans, cut short to halfway up my thighs. I pull them down farther instinctively, but they don't go all that far.

"C'mon, girls! I'll make sure it'll be the best weekend of your life! You'll be right back here when it's all over, and it'll be like nothing happened, but boy, will shit have gone down! My uncle's got this condo, on the ocean, and I'm meeting a bunch of friends down there! It's gonna be a total party on the beach1 What do you think about that, babe?" He takes his hand up and caresses Six's check with it. _Bad. Move._

He's airborne, flung up into the sky by an invisible force. I look up into the bright blue sky and try to spot him but the sun's blinding. Then I see him, shaking around back and forth, up and down, forward and back, randomly like some roller coaster.

The twins run back to the truck and jump in. The gas is on in a second, but they don't go anywhere. My grip is too strong. I use my telekinesis to pull the baseball capped one out the window and knock him out on the concrete, and the other one breaks out of the door and goes running off down the highway as fast as his freak lanky legs will carry him.

Six looks at me. I look back at her. Her hands aren't moving. Her eyes dart around, then she spins around and I throw a casual toss of the head backwards, still trying to set the truck down without breaking it. _Easy does it, now. Don't smash, please don't smash…_

Bro Tank comes swooping out of the sky right at the trees, and a figure jumps out. It's in black clothing, with perfectly laced up boots. _Screw the car_. I let it fall, its shocks catching it, and jump backwards to see the guy's face forcefully shoved into Nine's as he shouts, at the top of his lungs, I might add, "Don't you EVER touch them again! UnderSTAND ME!" I can see the spittle flying from way over here. The guy nods quickly, and Nine throws him contemptuously behind him, into the forest.

I run up to Nine and hug him so hard it's not even funny. Six does the same, even though they're not on the best of terms… That doesn't matter now, I know. It just matters that we're here, and that everything's all right.

I started crying at some point there, and I wipe it away, hoping nobody noticed. Nine grins at me, obviously he did. "Sisters gotta stick together, right?"

So that happened. Now we're in a McDonalds in Raleigh, having taken the car, not too damaged from dropping, and driven here before ditching it. Obviously we can't use that car, right? The police will be looking for it.

"Oh, no they won't! That's what they said about the last one, and we turned out just fine!" Nine looks over at Six. "Except that part about you dying and all. That woulda _sucked_!"

I don't much care about the conversation. I just care about the Big Macs. I've downed two already, going on a third. Six said something earlier about, _Slow down there, they always say that if you eat too much when you haven't eaten you'll throw it all back up_. That was on my first burger. She's stopped trying to change my mind now, and is just arguing with Nine about going to pick the car back up, throwing glances over at me to see if I'll ever stop eating.

"Besides," Nine talks through a mouthful of fry. "We're already being chased by the feds anyway, after Florida!" This gets him a few looks from the customers in the adjoining tables, and he props his legs up on the table top just to make the point. "That truck has too much character to be thrown out! That rustic green, oohhh. The purr of that gramma engine, ooh-la-la, baby. Ooooooohh- laa- laaa."

"Fine. Say we get the car…," she trails off as she watches me finish the third sandwich and start on the fourth.

"What?" I throw up my hands in protest. Then I bring them back down and clutch my stomach. _Crap. Double crap. Stomach cramp? Not likely. More like…_ I rush over to the trash can and throw the lid onto the floor, then hold onto it like a steering wheel as I puke into it.

"I told you so!" Six shouts form back there. I stand up with dignity, tugging my shirt back into place and wiping my mouth with a napkin I grab from off to the side somewhere. The people in the restaurant are all looking at me, and I just put on my best _hey there_ smile and wave like a chick. They don't look away. So I just go sit back down, feeling their eyes on me.

"Hey guys," I interrupt. "Could we get out of here? Like, now?"

Six nods. "Sure, Mar. We just _need a car_," her head turns spookily back to Nine as she speaks.

"We've got a car, _Maren_. It's sitting right out there in the parking lot! Look, I can see it from here!" He stands up and waves at the rusty green truck.

Six pulls him back down. "Stop! You're attracting attention!"

"Oh, come on, we're already freak shows here, anyways. See all the people? How they're looking at us like we're insane? Yup. Cuz I do. And frankly, I don't care about any of you people!"

"Okay, that's it. C'mon, Mar, we're going," she pulls Nine up and he pushes her away and walks on his own toward the door. The peoples' eyes are still on me as we walk out to the car, up, up and away from that.

He throws open the driver's door and jumps in, and I happily grab the passenger. I don't really know how to drive, anyway, sooo, it's probably better this way. Nine waits, tapping his thumbs on the wheel, until he hears the back door open and close. "So. Where to, sweetheart?"

"Oh, shut up, Nine, you tool," is all Six says. Nine pulls us out and starts to drive north. I don't know why north, maybe it's because it's the way we've been traveling this entire time? That makes some sense.

While we're sitting at the stoplight, all's quiet in the car. I'm not really talkative, and I think Six and Nine are back to bickering. Oh well. I casually glance at the mirror while throwing my arm out through the open window. Out there, a few cars behind us, is this spotless red corvette with the top down. I can see all the people inside except the driver, who's obscured by the car in front.

It's the eyes of the dude in the passenger seat that really shake me.

_**Three guesses who's in the car.**_


	8. Eight- Confrontation

**_So. Long weekend over, back to school now. I'm not actually done with my homework yet, but whatever. Fanfic Hoooooo! PS. Just finished watching At World's End and On Stranger Tides, so this may or may not be heavily influenced. _**

8-A Mog. It's a Mog- a Mogadorian. What! How! What! How'd they find us? We've been completely, and I mean _completely_, off the grid! What, did they pick us up on the cameras at McDonald's or something! How is that even possible! What!

_No! Mar, move, now_. That thing is out to kill us. That thing wants us dead, deader than dead-dead. It wants to come over here and rip us apart and eat us and whatever the _fuck_ else! God! I scan the corvette quickly, not really taking the mogs in, just grabbing Nine by his shirtsleeve and pulling down hard. "Nine! Nine, drive the car! Drive!"

He shoots me a worried look but doesn't hesitate, honking ferociously and speeding past the cars in front of us, in the lane to the right. We blow right past the intersection, and when I turn around Six has blown out the back window and is standing out on the bed, trying to see what I saw.

The car jumps, bucking hard into me. _OW!_. Did we just hop a curb? Trees shoot past and I duck just in time to get missed by a big branch that would've taken my head off.

No. Not important. I rush back there and hop the jagged glass and I'm out there now, nearly knocked over in the wind. Woah-woah-woah! I'm about to fall backwards off into the road, which is flashing by below us, when Six grabs me and steadies me.

"There!" I point, just as the corvette pulls out to chase us. It picks up speed, gaining on us, but it'll never hop the curb like we did. I mean, it's going _really fast_ now, racing through the intersection. "Nine, drive FASTER!" I shout down to him, and the truck lurches forward, finally back on pavement.

I look to Six to see her punching in that direction randomly- the same kind of telekinetic shadowboxing we did in Florida. Good idea.

I throw a violent punch forward, and I feel it connect, a hundred feet back there, with the sie of the car. It pitches to the right. I throw it again, and again. _Boom!_ Resistance!

There's something fighting me back!

Suddenly I'm hit, hard, by some invisible slap. It sends me careening out of control, dropping onto my back, still in the back. What was that! What was that! Can it be… Could it be…

Was that Five? Did he just bitch slap me?

Did he! Did he! God, I really HATE Him! How can he have the nerve…

I stand up, not even bothering to heal off what is obviously a big red mark. I just make a wipe arcing motion with my full arm, feeling the resistance of the almost magnetic like pull of telekinesis. It lands and the car suddenly goes flying off out of control to the right, hitting a tree and taking out a fender.

Take _this_, you little bastard! And this! And this! I keep hitting! And hitting! And hitting! I jump off the car and take the car up in my hands and smack it against the tree three times in a second, then on the ground, then throw it up and drop kick it into a building!

Fuck you, Five! _Fuck you!_ I run toward where their car stands, sputtering on the ground, as fast as I can, which is pretty damn fast.

I throw the car up in the air. I tug the Mog I saw in the passenger seat out and _throw him away! Take that, Mogs! Take that hard!_ I rip the people out of the back seat and throw them as far as I can- which isn't far, with all the buildings of downtown scattered all around.

Then I see Five. He's crushed against the side of the door, hair flung around his _bastard face_. His bastard face!

I rip the traitor out of his seat and fling him up into the sky until I can't see him anymore. When I catch him, I take hold of him by the hair from a thousand feet away and send him hurdling back at me at the speed of light! Just like Nine did with that Bro Tank!

Let's see how he likes it! Let's see!

I jump up to meet him flying at me and punch him clean in the face, sending him into the ground like a volleyball. It sends cracks webbing out all around him like punching glass. _Spiked, mother fucker!_

I jump down to land on him, the ground suddenly viciously cold around me. I promised him I'd take his eyes. No, I'm gonna _kill him!_

I rip him up to meet his eyes when I kill him, to see the same light bleed away from his eyes like it did when I sat there, helpless, helpless to help Eight!

Yeah, I bring him right up to me and hold him out and I'm about to throw a punch that'll send him flying into a building or some shit and-

It's John.

What?

_What?_

It's John!

Oh my god, it's John.

I drop him to the ground, heart racing even faster than it was during the fight, and involuntarily gasp. John! Where'd he come from!

"Oh my god, John, I thought, I thought-," I stutter, suddenly unable to speak. _Talk, you idiot!_ "I thought you were Five! Oh my god!"

I rush up to him. His eyes are open, but barely. God, he looks worse than Nine did in the Everglades! I don't even know where to start. And those people, who I threw out of the back like dolls… Where they, Sam? Malcom? _Sarah?_

What about the Mog?

I drop John back to the pavement abruptly. _What about the Mog?_ What's he got to do with anything? Why was he in the car with John? Why didn't John kill him?

…What if Nine was right?

Speaking of them, The truck drives up to me and honks. "Finish him!" Nine shouts. I don't know if he sees it's John or thinks it's Five, but he'd shout that to me if either were here under me, all the bones in their body broken. Limp. Helpless. What have I done?

I start to heal him, feeling his bones, feeling the damage, feeling the fractures and the overall deadness around me. Before I can get too far, though, Something hits me hard in the side and knocks me off of John. It takes me in its jaws- somehow I can feel that they're jaws- and barrels right at the brick walls of the buildings on either side.

"No, no!" I scream, struggling to get free from the monster. What is it! _What is it!_

I feel the crash, the bricks falling down on me, the iron and the steel inside. I can feel the beast back up and headbutt the wall again and again and again, somehow managing to stay conscious just like me.

Eventually it drops me and runs over, back to where I left John. I hear a commotion, words being said, all that. I try to open my eyes, but it doesn't work. All I see is blackness.

All.. I hear… Is.. screaming? There's an explosion somewhere, then whats sounds a lot like a stampede in front of me, towards where the Beast ran off. Bernie Kosar. I can piece that much together, the beast was BK. He was just protecting John.

"No! Get off of him!" Is that Six? Who's she yelling at? God, it'd be really nice just to go out right here, to get out of it all and just fall right asleep… But what if I don't ever get back up?

No… No… Gotta get up now…

I press my hand to my head, trying to mend it, trying to fix whatever happened. It's not working. I can see flashes of light from inside my eyelids, all over them, making firework patterns and all that. Awkward splashes of light in unexpected places.

More screaming. I can make that out. Another explosion. What's making the explosions? Doesn't matter. Feel cold. Hands cold. Why are they cold? Is it something I'm doing? Healing. It's my Legacy. I'm healing myself.

Hands so cold… Why are they cold again? Doesn't matter. Press them to my head, it'll make it feel better. It's not working. Why did I think this would work? My arm's getting tired.

A shout, then a bang right near me somewhere. I hear… something rumbling to the ground, then those things moving around eerily.

Growling. There's growling. But for some reason the growling doesn't come near me. Why isn't it come near me? Doesn't matter. Cradle head. Why is this working? Is it working? Why did I think it was working? Legacy. Right. It's a Legacy.

I shiver. Why is it _so cold in here_? Who turned down the thermostat? Shivering. Hands even colder. Almost… icy. Icyness. Icyness oozes out onto my head. How is that supposed to fix it? Legacy. Right.

I feel a lot better now. My Legacy. It's working. It's working so well. I can almost… If I try hard enough… Open my eyes? Maybe? Nope.

_C'mon. Try._ I try. I try to open them, pulling them, and suddenly a white light is all around me. No.. Just white for a second. Then it's blue. Why would it be blue?

I take one hand and cover my eyes, and with the other one I feel down the side of my body, feeling all the teeth marks and giant holes and soon-to-be bruises.

Why am I here? Oh yeah! I… fought Bernie Kosar? Why would I fight Bernie Kosar? Oh, he attacked me! Because I attacked John! But I thought he was Five!

Wait. The explosions. The shattering. All that. That's the battle! There's a battle! Why is there a battle! What? Why is there a battle between John and Nine and Six? I need to _move_!

Move! Move! C'mon, Mar! I imagine my own personal cheerleading squad all around me, cheering me on as I sit here in the cold and run my hands all over. _Mar! Mar! Go-go-go, Mar!_

Get. Up. I open my eyes now, adjusted. I don't see anyone, but I do find a happy surprise. I'm inside a giant ice cage. I fortified myself in a foot-thick ice box. Awesome. No. Not the time for awesomes. The time for action. Because I'm almost done.

Boom. Like a ding telling you your popcorn's done, I hop up, dust myself off, and blast through the ice cage and out onto the scene, getting into a supportive stance, ready for action. Except there's no one here. John's gone. The truck's gone. BK's gone. But… Is that…

Sam and Sarah lie discarded on the road on the other side of the median. I rush over to Sam and drag him over to Sarah, then start healing them together, one hand for each. It doesn't take long, it's not by any means draining or anything. Eventually Sarah's scared eyes pop open, followed by Sam's.

"Marina? What are you doing?" Sarah says. She stands up and rubs her head, then throws me a glare. "And why did you throw us around like that!"

"Yeah!" Sam shouts supportively, daringly. Not daringly enough to get in my face about it, but still daringly.

I shake my head. "No time for that. Where'd they go?" I point back at the scene of the battle.

"Yeah, there is time," Sam pushes forward and gets up in my face. Guess he is daring. "Where's my dad!"

"And what happened to Adam…," Sarah trails off.

Then I hear it. The screech of tires. All the other cars fled the scene, so it's gotta be the truck. It's getting closer- I can hear the hum of the engine running at us.

Suddenly it barrels out from around the corner, tires as screechy as ever. I see Nine at the steering wheel, driving with one hand, while trying to pull John's limp body away from Six with the other. I reach out my invisible hand, feeling around. Feeling the buildings, the median, the pavement, and the truck in the middle. And I stop it in its tracks, setting it down lightly, unlike before.

Nine gives up on taking John and hops out, looking around. Then his eyes settle on me staring at him. "You want something!" He shouts as he storms past me, to where I can't imagine.

Six flies out the other side, carrying John over her shoulder. "Marina, thank God, please help me," she begs. "John, he's…," Yeah. I know what John looks like. I already saw it earlier.

She plops him softly on the hard pavement, propped up against the storefront. I look in there and see the customers cowering in the back, all looking at me as I do this. _Now's not the time to be reserved about it_. _Just do it_.

I'm in no rush as a casually heal him, thinking back to what's happened. So. I nearly killed everything because I wanted to kill Five. _Well, we'll all get a crack at Five eventually. Now's not the time, Mar_. I know I'm right. I nearly killed John thinking it was Five. I wonder… would I have healed him, fully knowing that that Mog was in the seat next to him?

Wait. Sarah called him Adam. Isn't that the name that Malcom called the Mog defector? Wait a second… the one with One's power? That was the Mog I threw high in the sky? Oh, god, I really screw up big time this time…

John's eyes open. "John, good. Heal yourself from here, I got to go find Adam and Malcom," I say to him, and he nods weakly. I force myself past Sarah and Sam, who were standing behind me, and run up and down the road looking for a Mog body. Or a conspicuous pile of ash.

There! I almost run right past- there he is, pale skin and all, lying face up by a dumpster behind a building. "Adam! Hang on, I'm coming!"

I'm over to him in a second, wondering it my Legacy will work with Mogs. _Why not, right? It works on everything else_. I get to it. It seems to be working, because he starts to stir…

Enough. He can handle it. I throw him over my shoulder and run back to find John sitting up now, looking confused. I throw Adam down next to him, with just a "Fix him, too," and run around again trying to find Malcom. I go inside some buildings, up to the roof to check them out and see if he ended up on a roof. No.. he's not up here. I get some pretty innocent death wishes from the customers cowering in corners, though. I wave shyly at them and keep looking.

He's nowhere. How could he just be gone? Where could he have gone? Oh, for the sake of Lorien, let me find him or Sam's gonna rip my throat out. Please, let him be… here! I spot the oddly human-shaped hole in a third story window of one of the buildings, and float myself up to it, not even caring who sees anymore.

He's in there, having smashed his way through a desk and landed there, motionless. I feel him all around- still alive. Thankfully.

No one's dying on my watch. Not today, anyway. I jump back down out of the building and set him down as quietly as I can near John, then straighten myself and catch my breath. It's only been twenty minutes or so since I first spotted the car, but _god damn_, what a ride!

I turn around to see what lies ahead.

**_So, yeah. Chapter Eight already, whew. I think I'm gonna take a break from writing(lol I say that now), so it might be a few days. Don't forget about me, kay? And remember to review! Tell me what I'm doing good! Tell me what I'm doing bad! Start spouting canons out all over my good clean review page! That's fine, too, canons are cool._**

**_Kay. See ya._**


	9. Nine- Infinite Shopping Cart

**_Sooooo, yeah. Been pretty busy this week, way more than I thought. I was just gonna take a few days to get ideas and shit, but then life happened lol. Anyway, Sorry for being out of it so long, and without any further ado, here's Chapter Nine._**

8-These halls are lined with boxes- boxes stacked up as high as can be, up to the ceiling, precarious, probably gonna fall down if I breathe on the shelves. Various marks and numbers stitch their sides, the symbols I've seen before. A swish. Some weird blocky S shape. One looks like that symbol that tells you how many bars you've got on a cell phone. Just so many! Boxes and boxes and boxes, a narrow aisle, that hum of the AC in the background because nobody's talking, they're all busy in here.

I heard girls, Gabby and herd in particular, talk about shoes before. I heard that they'd occasionally convince some hot guy or two to drive them into Barcelona just to try them on and swoon at them, and the dudes. But mostly the shoes. They'd come back to the dorms later, bragging about all the shoes they tried on, and then I'd be at the back of the pack of girls all crowding around them as they show them off and stash them under the beds, returning to their regular church ones.

Shoes. I'm an alien who grew up in a building made of stone and trained in a cave in the mountains, but there's still that alluring smell of new shoes, that not-quite-fitting but still comfy feel. And then there's how they look, oh my! I understand the swooning. All of it.

It was John's idea- we need to get feeling like humans again. After being cooped up in some loft that Malcolm found for us on Craig's List for a few thousand bucks, we needed to get out. Go see the world, not that we haven't seen more than enough already. John said what we've all been thinking- we just need to stop moving. Calm down, focus, recollect, and figure it out. Just hang out somewhere. And what better place than here, right?

Six comes rounding the corner at the end of my shoe covered hallway, driving a shopping cart stuffed with the boxes. That and Sarah riding in the very front, picking through them, throwing some off into the aisle, showing complete disregard for the place and how messy it's getting with the cases crashing to the floor.

"Oh, hey Mar," Six says, and Sarah waves lightly from the front, looking up to briefly meet my eyes when she does. "Finding anything?"

That's just a _lot_ of shoes she's got there! I mean, I've seen the giant wooden racks here, but she's gotta have a whole section of shelf in that tiny cart! "Woah, chick. Are you kidding me with this?"

She meets my eyes. "Nope. What's your move, chick? You wanna get some or not, because I'm about done here," she motions to the cart, and to make a point, Sarah throws another box out and smiles up at me.

Do I want shoes? Hell yeah. But how am I ever going to decide what I want? Look at those shelves! "Fine, I guess you've gotta have something I want," I wink and she rolls her eyes.

"Mooch."

"Whatever, let's check out," I've got the wallet, and it's got, like, ten or so shiny and crisp Ben Franklins in it. Turns out Sandor let Nine have the password to their Swiss Bank Account. Probably a bad move on his part, but I don't mind. If only we could hack Henri's, too…

We swing out the front door, me plopping down five of the Franklins. "That should do it," I say as the cashier's jaw drops. Before he can counter, we're out and into the bustle of people. What is it, a Saturday? Yeah, Saturday afternoon. I wonder how many are tourists and how many are actually citizens here. Probably more than fewer.

After two weeks, the sudden scope of the world all around me doesn't startle me. Much. You just jump into the river of bodies and go with the flow, wherever it takes you, weaving back around to the loft in no time.

The buildings are tall all around me, and out in the distance, taller than everything else, is Freedom Tower. It's big and giant and still not done, seeing the steel girders sticking haphazardly out of the top of the thing.

That's right. I heart New York City. So does everyone else.

There's a big moving billboard across from us, and before it changes to some ad I catch _April 17, 2011_ fly past on the bottom. Then it does some stocks and crap.

Six throws herself into the crowd and I have to struggle to follow her. She's piloting the cart like a pro, so much so that Sarah doesn't even bother to jump out. I shove my way forward and do a superman jump into the cart, landing next to Sarah. The metal cage strains a little, so I feel underneath it and create a little cushion of _magic_ telekinetic energy under us, to keep it from falling over.

"Hey, who told you you could get on board!" Six shouts, not even tired. I guess I don't weigh that much, for somebody like her.

"Sorry. I meant to say, permission to come aboard, cap-i-tan!" Giving a mock salute as I say so.

"Well, permission denied!" she tries to shake me off, but Sarah holds on to the cage, and my arm, tightly.

"Chick, stop that!" Sarah says in a suddenly screechy, panicked voice, and I see her gaze look down to the concrete below. So far below…

"Fine. But only because you asked nicely," she says.

"Ha-ha-ha. So that means I'm cool, too?"

She laughs, too. "You're always cool, Mar. You know?"

"I know," I flick my hand, trying to mimic a feather with my TK. Nine had this theory a few days ago, that if we really try, we could maybe mimic certain items with it. Mostly sword blades or bullets and shit, but stuff like trying to do a feather isn't all bad either.

It must've worked, because Six's giggles turn into a tortured shriek and she ducks away from my invisible feather, the passerby's giving her confused looks. "Stop it, chick! Not cool! Not cool anymore!"

I let up. "Fine. But did I do a good feather?"

She gets what I'm talking about. "Sure, you did a good feather," Rolling her eyes, she points at me and mouths something to Sarah.

"Hey, are you talking about me!"

"If I was talking about you, you'd see it!" Six tries.

"You know I'm a sucky lip-reader!" I try to make my best pouty face, but it's hard because I'm smiling too hard. "What did you say?"

"Nothing you need to know," She smirks to herself, and Sarah nods in approval.

"Whaaaat!"

Sarah just says, "Nothing," and we ride in relative silence. I catch brief patches of conversation, a mother trying to keep track of her kids, mumbling to herself about leashes. A big man in a suit, spiky brown hair going up, talking on a phone about a wedding. A young couple, probably our ages, running around and pointing at the sky, at the skyscrapers, for that matter, and shouting about the "enormity of it all."

There's every kind of people here, a group of teenage boys fly past on skateboards, a lone girl sits on a bench across the street, waiting for the bus. A tour bus, trapped in the sea of taxis, honks loudly and tries to swerve around one, only to have the spot taken at the last moment and they have to duck the bus out of the way, all the passengers screaming.

I close of my ears and just watch the people as they walk past- a tall redheaded woman, jogging along. Two girls in big blue bikes, the bikes too big, fly even faster. All kinds of businessmen are about, the kind that don't get weekends off. A short one in a brown suit shoves his way past the cart, getting hung up on our feet and almost tripping over us. He shoots us a hateful glazed-over look. Other men tromp past, some tall, some short. One catches my eye. He's short and plump and waddles along like a penguin- I don't mean that offensively either, he looks like a penguin in his fancy suit.

More men walk around, some even taller, one towering over all the others, wearing sunglasses in bright NYC sun, his pale head probably burning on the UV's, catching on fire. There's another one, with the same spiky hair I saw earlier. That must be a new craze, and all-

Wait a sec.

What did I just see?

Wait just a second. He was going the other way, away from us. His sunglasses dark and reflecting all the people around him. Was that a Mog? I focus my hearing back on and try to catch him, but he's already to far away.

No… It can't be a Mog. No way they could find us, no way in hell. We're completely of the record, last time they knew where we were was a thousand miles from here. They probably just have people in every city, right?

"Something wrong?" Sarah asks. "Your face is really white, chick. Like, Mog-white."

I gulp involuntarily. "I think there was a Mog back there," I say.

"Where!" Six jumps up from her cart-pushing slouch, looking over all the people taller than her.

Sarah shakes her head. "Are you sure, Mar? How could they have found us here?"

"They couldn't, that's the thing," Six butts in. "We made that purchase privately, and as far as they know, the loft still belongs to the guy who sold it to us," She shakes her head. "No way."

"Guys, I know what I saw! It's a Mogadorian! He's here! Back there a ways!" I point back behind Six, and she turns around and tries to catch a glimpse. "Well, he's _gone now_."

Six shakes her head again, quickly, side to side. "Let's get back quick. We don't know what we saw."

"Yeah. Really quick," I mutter, but I can't stop picturing the Mog in my head. We turn right up at the stoplight and speed off, as fast as you can go with a shopping cart filled with shoes and girls.

Our loft is in SoHo, even though none of us are artists, I know. I guess the guy who sold it was. I have no idea though. It's a big square metal building, and we rush in, Sarah freaking out when Six jumps the curb, lifting us up with TK, I'm pretty sure. I jump out and Sarah does, too, and we take the stairs up to the fifth floor, floating the cart along in front. Sarah holds onto the very front, that flat part, guiding it around the sharp cement corners.

While that's happening, I fumble around with my wallet, a cute little thing I got at a thrift store a few blocks from here. It's made of alligator skin. Figures.

No, I don't want the _wallet_. I want the keys! Yeah! Go, Mar, Go! Keys!

We burst onto the fifth level, cramped in the tight space with the cart there. I have to reach over and cram the keys in, but I fumble around and drop them, so Sarah bands down to pick them up and inserts them with steady hands.

She throws the door open and Six drops the cart hard on the floor, the boxes shuffling and some falling out. I take the scene in.

Nine ordered the biggest TV he could get off of Amazon, saying that "The place needed pizazz and shit," and that's where they're at. Sam, Adam, John and Nine are all over there, having a heated game of- is that Mario Kart? Nine's jumping up and down, floating the controller out in front of him and pushing the buttons from afar. John, Sam and Adam are on this half-eaten couch we threw down in front of it, all trying to fight for dominance, pushing and shoving and leaning and shouting.

Then the TV's turned off, and Nine's head snaps over at us. "Why'd you do that!" Six must've pushed the off button from over here. Huh. "I was winning!" The controller falls out of the sky and hits the floor with a crack, the batteries falling out as Nine stomps over toward us. "Nice shoes, by the way," He ushers over to the cart.

Six raises her hands and shouts, "Get over here, we need to talk! You too Malcolm, Wherever you are!"

"He's kinda asleep?" Sam offers. "Whatever it is, can it wait an hour or two?"

"No! Guys, there was a Mog! They're here! He was out on the streets!" Six pauses, letting it sink in. "They're here."

Nine steps forward even more, offering a question. "So? Mogs patrol big cities. It's kinda what they do. Remember that they love to blend in? Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long to see one," he chuckles.

John walks over and stands next to Nine, rolling over on the balls of his feet. "Wait. So, what happened again?"

I tell him, from the time we left the store, to me observing everything, and not even recognizing him at first. How he must not notice us, because he just keeps walking. How we hurry home.

"Wait a sec. Are you telling me you told them where we live?"

"No, of course not, I'm not Five. Where'd you pull that out of?" Six defends me.

"What if they followed you?"

"I told you, they didn't even notice us! We blended in!"

"What if you didn't?"

"We did, John!"

"Did you see him? Did you see where he was looking?" At this I pause. No. He had sunglasses on, and I wouldn't be able to see anyway, because he would've had eyes like Adam.

"Well, no."

John raises his hands. "How do you know, then? They could've seen you guys! We're all kind of on their databases, after all!"

I step back. "Jeez, whatever. It's just a single Mog."

"They'll send more to take us on."

"But they didn't see us! They wouldn't recognize us anyway," I point to my hair, eight inches shorter and yellow-blonde. It clashes with my Spanish complexion, but whatever. I look nothing like old Marina. Six just dyed her hair back to black and Sarah's pretty much just Sarah, just with shorter hair, like mine.

John takes it in, sucking in a breath. "If we get raided in the night, I'm blaming you guys," he says, then flashes a smile. "C'mon. We got pizza."

Everyone streams toward the kitchen, except for Adam and Nine, who stick around and start up Mario Kart again. I'm left standing there, thinking about what John said. What if he did see us? Recognize us? What then?


	10. Ten- Cold Bagels

**_Nooooo stuff today! You know what that means! It means I'm gonna make this chapter real long and detailed, hopefully to make up for me being gone for a week! And for Chapter Nine, which I think kinda sucked lol- it had a point, though, as you'll see here. Anyway, if you liked it, yayz! I luv you. If you didn't, I get where you're coming from, I know. _**

**_Rambling… Rambling… Chapter Ten!_**

10- The world jumps back into focus suddenly. Once it was all black- it seems like forever, almost, but no… No, that was just yesterday, right? Shopping and crap? Remember that? And Nine and John and Adam and Sam all playing around, not trying to kill each other for various stupid reasons? Remember that? Remember how nobody was a traitor, they just wanted to get along?

Remember how we were getting creative? That whole TK thing? Why'd I call it TK, anyway? Remember all the people? Bustling around, perfectly oblivious to all our problems and all the threats to their lifestyle? All of them on their own business, all that? Not really…

Remember our perfect little loft? And that shoe store that… I don't remember. I can hardly picture the loft anymore, and… no…

I see Mario Kart once more, but the scene is almost transparent now, fading into the back of my mind. Wait… I look around. What was I thinking about again? Something about New York. About… Nine and John getting along… I chuckle at the thought, however bitterly. Yeah. The day those two get along is the day _we win_ the war.

Yesterday. That's what I was thinking about. Why would I want to think about that? Nothing good happened there. A lot of mistakes, infighting, escaping from the Barn, that was good. Getting threatened by random street guys, bad. Throwing up at the McDonalds, good.

_Beating the living shit out of John? Bad._ Tossing everyone around like they were nothing? Bad. Remember that Sarah you were thinking about? That one that was so happy and called you _chick? Who calls each other chick, anyway?_ She hates you, Mar! Sure, you saved her from death- being thrown forcefully into a hard brick building, then dropping three stories to the hard ground- but only because you did it to her in the first place! And John… she loves him!

How could _you do that_! Nine's always been so annoying with his irritating rants about John being evil, and he did try to kill him yesterday, throwing discarded bricks so fast at his mangled body that they burst into little explosions on the surface of the concrete… Then Six tried to escape in the truck, and Nine jumped aboard, stole the wheel and tried to throw John out the window? That's what Six said he did.

John said it was almost as if Nine was like an older brother to him- annoying, but lovable, sure. He told us about their fight on the roof, but this took it too far. Yeah, about them playing Mario Kart together, peacefully? Nope.

Oh, and the _look on Nine's face_ when he came back from blowing up the five nearest gas stations, and finding Adam sitting there staring up at us blankly? He was on Adam so fast, it was within the _tenth_ of a second, and even less when the knife went straight through Adam's forehead and burrowed in his brain.

What happened next? It's all kind of a blur. I remember John charging Nine, throwing him off while I run up to Adam faster than lightning and start to fix his head. He's fine in the end. But needless to say, he didn't bunk with Nine.

Nobody bunked with Nine, actually. I look around the Podunk little Motel room we've got here- sharing a bed with me is Six, who's still asleep, even as I stand up and hop lightly out, setting the covers back down noiselessly as I do so.

The clock on the little wooden bedside table between the two queen beds reads 4:12. Wow. No wonder she's still asleep, or Nine in the other bed, taking up all the space. That might be a reason no one bunked with him, too… Just maybe. That and the fact that he's now assaulted pretty much everyone in our party.

I've assaulted more, though.

I tried explaining it to John, and he says that it's all cool, that he's not gonna sneak in here and slit my throat in my sleep for what I did, but I can tell that it's just him being kind and thoughtful about me and… Yeah, I'm a big girl. I can think about it. He's being kind about me and Eight. I know that's why he's gentle, even though I'm really not.

What was my dream world like? It was perfect… we all got along… We had no problems in the world… We had just settled down and stayed there. Last night we traveled well into the night to get as far away from that place as possible, pretty much driving all afternoon and not stopping when the sun went down. Malcolm's the only one that explicitly said that they'd be on the battle scene, ripping the memories out of witnesses by the end of the day, and they'd have tracked us and know where we were. So we had to get away.

That's how we're here. Camped out, not in an expensive SoHo loft space, but a dumpy Hampton Inn in Alexandria, Virginia. And as soon as dawn breaks, we'll be on the move again, and in who-knows-what town by sunset.

It gets tiring, you know? I've been on the run for, what, a few days? What about what everyone else went through? Being yanked out of fake lives every few months to get moving because there may or may not be a Mog in a thousand mile radius?

Eh. I don't want to think about it anymore. I jump in the shower and take a short, quick one, then change back into my old clothes, which probably ruins the point, because they still smell like woods and smoke. I've been wearing the same things for a week, haven't I? Why can't we just be left alone? Why can't we just go derp off for a month in New York, training and gaining new legacies, actually getting ready? Yeah, that week and a half in Chicago doesn't count.

I squeak open the door as quietly as I can muster, and still wince as it makes what is probably the loudest sound I've ever heard in my entire life. Six stirs, Nine doesn't. Fine. I just shut the door quickly on my way out, not really caring if they wake up. They'll see the time and jump right back to sleep. I should've, and I'm really tired, but I don't want to sleep. Will I see a perfect, tantalizing world again? One I'll never have as long as I live? It's not the nightmares like Ella had, and it's a stupid excuse to go downstairs and whatever, but, I dunno.

Ella. That's the one thing that the others have been pretty vague on. All John'll say is that the Mogs captured her in the battle in Chicago- nothing more. I already knew that Eight was gone, and after my week in complete isolation- or as near as I'll hopefully ever get- I'm all cried out. Over everything. But this dark world got just a little darker when I learned that Ella wasn't one of the people I threw violently into the side of a building.

Huh. Surprisingly, I feel both comforted and disturbed by that fact. I wonder why.

I push the elevator button to go down, all the way to the bottom floor. By that, I mean down two floors. We got you a penthouse, Nine… Be happy…

Breakfast doesn't actually start getting served down here until, like, five o'clock, I think. It's on that billboard out front, and we chose this place _specifically_ because it offered the earliest breakfast, so we could set out as soon as possible. All that doesn't mean I'm sure, though. Maybe it's four thirty… Yeah, I hope it's that. I'm tired, and also hungry. I could go for a bagel or something. Not too hot, not to cold. Just Goldilocks.

Huh. _Goldilocks_. I heard that story many times rom Adelina as a kid, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it. It sounds… foreign. I guess that's because it is. I've been trying to learn to, like, think in English, instead of Spanish, but it's a hard transition. It's not _encerrada dorada_. It's just Goldilocks.

The breakfast place is just an extension of the lobby, in all its pale whiteness. No paint. White walls, white tile floors- not even wallpaper. The restaurant has this pretty purple flower wallpaper, though. It lightens the mood. A little.

John and Adam are sitting there at one of the brightly colored wooden tables, crouched over something that's lighting their faces up. As the elevator closes shut, John's head perks up and sees me. He stands up, and so does Adam, their faces darkening. "Hey, uh, Marina," John stutters. "Whatcha up to?"

Adam stays silent, but he steps towards me, and I notice that he's got the same grey wolf at his side as yesterday, plus… his head looks blurry. Somehow. I dunno.

I start toward them, and see that the thing that was lighting them up is the tablet. _Good. I didn't destroy that, at least_. "Hey, guys."

I see it before it can register- Adam's face is blurred because shapes keep passing in front of it, kinda fast. Never in front of his eyes, just, like, orbiting his head… Those are horseflies! Shit!

Too late. Before I can move, one of them breaks off and charges me, and I back up quickly toward the door. "What! Why! What the hell, Adam? What's with the horseflies!"

His face is moving up and down really fast, and… wait. He's laughing! They're both laughing! "Guys! Do something! What's with the horsefly!"

Before it can get too close, it suddenly morphs, turning into a golden retriever on the floor as I watch. Its hair is tangled and dirty, but it's still beautiful. It charges me more, coming up as if it's trying to tackle me and licks me hand feverishly.

"Not funny, guys!" Yeah, I completely forgot about Adam's story about rescuing the chimaera. I guess I was kind of skeptical, I mean, one- _A mog helping us in the first place? And two- to help us so much as to give us a key in winning the war?_ I lighten up a little, though. C'mon- who wouldn't calm down and relax when there's a golden retriever in the room? That or go berserk, because they've got so much energy, see? "What's her name?"

"What'd we name that one?" Adam asks John.

"Tycho," he says back. "Yeah, we've been brainstorming names for all of them. What do you think, Marina?" He walks up to me and pats Tycho on the head as he does so, showing me a list.

_Alex_

_Burgundy_

_Curiosity_

_Deeohgee_

_Barre_

_Tycho_

_Sand_

_Earth_

_Gally_

_Newton_

I nod in my approval. "Seems good. Just… Deeohgee? What kind of name is that?"

John snickers to himself, then holds out his hands and writes a D-O-G on the paper. "Oh."

"Yeah, we're not gonna use that one. It seems to.. disrespectful, you know? For vicious beasts, they should have good, respectful names, right?"

"Bernie Kosar?" I say, cocking an eyebrow, and he laughs.

"He's a football player!"

"My point," we both start laughing at this, and I glance over at Adam, who's still over there with his horseflies and wolf. The Chimeara have seemed to stuck to him mostly, and I guess it's because they know him best or something. He's only had them for a week or so, though, barely longer than they knew John. I guess there's something… warm about Adam. And cold at the same time. I mean, Mog, right?

"Anyway, Adam, wanna show her the herd?" He looks back over to him.

He stands up. "Uh, yeah, sure," he walks over and stands by us, making a triangle.

"Kay guys, wanna show yourselves?" John talks to the animals, and they all buzz around Adam's head once more before flying off and landing on the floor, turning into four more dogs. I don't know breeds, but I'm pretty sure one's a great dane, and we have all three types of labs. There's only the black ones, the yellow ones, and the chocolate ones, right? Whatever. Those are the dogs that now sit on the floor.

John points to the Chocolate one. "That's Newton," then to the Yellow one, "Earth," Then to the black one, "Alex," and finally to the great dane. "And this is Burgundy."

"Ha-ha. You mean Ron Burgundy?" We watched the _Anchorman_ back in Chicago one night, before we met Five. That's probably where he pulled the name from.

"Actually, no. Remember, they have to be respectful names? Burgundy is actually a kingdom in medieval France," He pauses for a minute, "It's also Ron Burgundy's last name."

I raise my fist into the air, success! "I knew it!"

"So, yeah. That, and, we've been tracking Five. He's close, actually, if you wanna see," I nod, and he leads me and Adam back to the table, where the tablet sits idly. There's four pulsing blue dots in northern Virginia and a fifth… in the middle of Maryland? No… No, that's Washington DC! Five's in freaking Washington! The capitol!

"Uhhh, what?"

"The government and the Mogs are in cahoots, remember? It doesn't actually surprise me, that much," John concedes. I guess he's right. And what Adam talked about there being a kind of Mog village there, yeah. That makes sense.

Something else catches my eye. A sixth blue dot. Sitting, unmoving. In. West. Virginia. _Ella_. "No."

John realizes where I'm looking, but doesn't say anything. Adam moves away, back over to where the herd is now bouncing around playfully, probably waking up everyone else in the building.

It's all quiet. The sound of the dogs is gone, of the AC running, that familiar hum that seems to be in the background anywhere. I think about Sam, the scars on his wrists. About Six and Nine, seeing their Cepans cut up and tortured there. It got so bad that Nine killed Sandor so that he wouldn't have to endure any more. What about Ella…

I wipe my eyes, my arm feeling wet with tears. I didn't even realize I was crying. Guess I'm not all cried out, huh. John just pats me on the back, muttering "It's okay. It's all going to be okay in the end."

What if it isn't? Our chances are looking better by the day, but, just think how close we were to annihilation in Florida! And New Mexico! We always thought it would be so easy after we found each other… that it'd be over and we could go home. Well, it turns out that some things aren't that simple, huh. We actually have to fight the war, now, instead of just run from it. Pretend it doesn't exist. _Adelina_.

I can't blame her for that, no. It's not her fault. It's the people, all those disrespectful people. Remind we why we're saving them, again?

I look up. Mostly because the dogs all start growling at once. Standing at the elevator door is a figure- Nine. He stalks out and comes face to face with Adam, towering over him by a full head. They don't speak, and Nine brushes past him, probably intentionally hitting his shoulder, and the herd, coming up to us. "So when's breakfast?"

John's eyes wander up to the clock on the wall. "Looks like half an hour, about exactly," I see that the clock says 4:30. Yup. It is five o'clock. Just _my_ luck. _Hey, at least you're not dead or tortured._

"Thanks, Don John," Nine sneers, then his eyes fall on me. I try to wipe the tears away as fast as possible, but it doesn't go over so well. "Johnny, what'd you and your Mog friend do to her!"

He stomps over and drapes a protective arm over my shoulder. For some reason I don't shrug it off, even though I should. It feels warm and comforting. From Nine. Yeah, that's confusing.

"She saw where Ella is," Is all John says, and then he's gone, over by Adam playing with the herd. Dogs. D-O-G's. Whatever.

Nine looks at the tablet, and he just nods. "Coulda expected that…"

That's when I shrug him off. "Really! That's all you got!" All the dogs', plus wolf's, ears jump up and look at me.

"What're you looking at!" Nine shouts at them. "Nothing to see here!" They all go back to what they were doing, although John's eyes linger on us for a little while before he returns.

"And, yeah. They captured Ella, where else would they take her? They're gonna get as much information out of her as they can, before they…"

"Oh, just say it," I mutter bitterly. "They're going to kill her. Slowly, like they were doing with Sam. That green liquid…," a shiver shoots up my spine, and suddenly it's way colder in here. The clock on the wall is no longer visible from the frost, and all the chimaera morph into something with heavy fur- a lot trying the wolf on for size. Not Dust's wolf, still, more fur.

I breathe in and out, slowly, my breath visible in clouds floating in front of me. Nine rubs his arms with his hands fast, Adam visibly shivers. I can see it from here. John just stands there, though. The benefits of being resistant to temperature. "What's happening?"

Nine shivers his way forward, standing up straight to talk. "She must've forgot to tell you. Marina developed a new legacy. She can control ice,"

John's eyes light up. "Fire and ice, baby!" Even I can't help but laugh. Yeah, Fire and Ice.

"I can't really control it yet, though. It just sort of happens, like, when I get emotional and that."

"Yeah, yeah, same thing with my Lumen. When I first got it, my hands would light up whenever I got stressed or angry. You just gotta learn to control it, Marina."

"Yeah, I know. That's… kinda the problem…," I trail off.

"C'mon, just breathe, Marina. Just, think happy thoughts," He tries.

Breathe. In and out. In and out. Without realizing it, I closed my eyes, and when I open them the clock is fine again. There's pools of water on the floor, which John is quick to dry up by shining his palms on it. It, like, boils away, but it's still gone.

I look back and stare at the pale blue dot in West Virginia. Then, trying to get away from it, I switch to the view that shows us the ships. Ella's is still in Egypt, but… our ship has changed. It's not in New Mexico anymore, it's way north, somewhere in, like, Colorado. Wait… is it moving? Yeah! The green triangle shape is moving, crawling slowly eastward. Hah! They must've hauled it out of the wreckage of the base and are, like, shipping it off to some other Mog Base.

I drag Nine over and show it to him. "Haha! Cool!" Is all he says, although he picks up the tablet and switches it back and forth between Garde View and Ship View a few times. "Yeah, it's definitely coming this way. Maybe they'll dump it in West Virginia, too. Then we could kill two birds with one stone," he muses. "Metaphorically, of course," He says, turning to me. "I'm not saying we actually, you know, kill her."

Well I wasn't thinking about _that_. Why was Nine?

The elevator dings for, like, the billionth time, and this time when it opens there's a whole party in there. I guess Six finally woke up, or somebody woke her, and Sam and Malcolm and Sarah all spill out, too. John pulls Sarah into a warm embrace and Six pets Alex on the back for a second before walking over to me and Nine. "What's up?"

"Take a look," I spout grimly, handing her the tablet. Her amused face- probably at the moving ship- quickly fades when she sees where Ella is. "No… I'm so sorry, Marina."

She pulls me into a hug, and her body is warm around me. I never realized I was so cold… The same shiver from earlier shoots down to the small of my back again. "God, Marina, you're so cold!"

I rub my arms quickly like they do in movies. "I know, right."

We turn off the tablet and set it on the table, then scoot two more tables over too it, creating one giant one. We're ready and waiting as the lobby attendant walks in the front door and sees us all waiting. He rushes around, plopping down bagels and muffins and apples and stuff. We all combined probably gobble up their whole supply, and for a second I feel a little ashamed that we're depriving all the other customers. Then I bite into my bagel, and it passes.

Nobody talks. We just eat in silence. It's so hard to keep track of who can't stand each other nowadays, but everyone seems, content. That's the word. Content with our present, and content on what's to come.


	11. Eleven- Before the Fissure

**_Hey pretty people. So, yeah. I finally figured out what I want to do with this fanfic. I even made a chapter plot! LOL. Anyway, it's gonna be about thirtyish chapters long and include a bunch of multi-chapter battle scenes and downtime chapters. That sort of thing- fast pacing a slow pacing. Anyway, this is the setup for the first of those battle scenes, which I finished writing a few minutes ago. :P_**

11- After breakfast gets over with, John tells me and Six to run upstairs and grab our chests while the rest go and figure out a seating arrangement that won't get somebody killed. _That mostly means don't sit anybody next to Nine or me. Huh._ Speaking of Nine, John sent him to go take care of the room's one camera, burning up all the film of the chimaera changing form and, basically, any and all footage of us that could put the Mogs on our trail. We were never here. That's what it comes down too.

I can't stop thinking about _Ella _though. Her… tortured… in West Virginia… Just imagine, her frail body strung up in some horrible torture mechanism, that green liquid spilling over her back and burning and scalding her young body… Her screams…

_Her terrible screams_.

_She would come for me. She would come for me, she would go through fire to save me. So would John. But Ella would actually have a problem with it_. Imagine it was me captured- they'd kill me instantly, knowing I'm a Garde. What's with Ella? Why are they keeping her? Is she going to be some sick meat shield for Sektrakus Ra later on, when the battle comes down to me? Will he do that, fully knowing that I won't fire?

_He would_.

The battle for the fate of everything- I can see it now. Adam, John, Six and Nine, along with everyone else, are off in scuffles with soldiers- _vatborns_- and piken and crap, not to mention whatever hideous new monstrous creations they seem to be coming up with lately. I see Ra across the battlefield- I can't predict what it'll look like, but I know they will be one- and I ready an ice bullet or a TK Mach punch or something, and he sees me and throws Ella in front of him. I can see my arm stop in mid-air, freeze like the swamp where Eight died.

He knows I can't do it. He smiles when he sees my arm, his uneven teeth glinting in the white light of my fake scene. He sees my shock, then he runs at me, Ella held out in front of him, screaming. _Her terrible screams_.

"No_. No_. No. _No, we're_ going to get Ella," I think aloud, and Six gazes over at me thoughtfully from the other side of the smallish elevator we're in, as if she'd been thinking the same thing. She doesn't say anything, though. Just looks at me, expecting me to make my case. "I mean- we can't just leave her there! She's one of us."

She nods slowly. "Yeah, I know."

A second passes. "And?" I can't hide the irritation in my voice. Adelina, Hector, Crayton, Eight. Besides Six, Ella seems like my only outlet; the only person left in the whole universe on Team Marina.

She shrugs. "What do you wanna do about it?"

"What? You're _Mrs. _Kickass. Surely you've got an idea!"

"What?" She stands straight up, I didn't even notice she was leaning on that stupid golden handrail that circumnavigates the cabin, and looks into my eyes. "What _can we do_?"

In that instant, I decide what I'm doing. I decide something. Forever and ever, I've let myself get pulled to and fro by everyone else. _You're a follower, Mar_.

Not anymore. "I'm going to invade West Virginia. With or without all of you," I'm a little shocked that came out of my mouth, but Six just smirks.

She walks over to me just as the door dings and opens. There's no one there, because it's so early and all. "That's what I wanted to hear," She says to me, almost in a whisper, then pulls me into a hug. "I'm in," she says it into my hair, and I can't help but feel a rush of adrenaline. _Are we actually doing this?_

"No, no, no. We can't, Six! It's too much of a risk, we need to train more, we need to…," I trail off. I said it. I spoke my _mind_ for once. But I'm jumping back away from it. _Why?_ Do I really want to do this? Yeah. Yeah I do.

"Okay then," She says, and stalks off down the hall to the room where the others slept in, the one with our chests in it. _No. No. No. Ella's fate is in my hands, I've gotta do something about it_.

"Wait, wait, _wait, Six, God Damnit!_" I pound into the wall, punching right through it and the stud behind it, knocking a chunk out of the ceiling. My vision's blurry. Why's it blurry? Am I crying? Really, Mar? _Yeah, Mar. I'm crying. I'm crying for myself, for Ella, for the poor hotel owner who's gonna have to pay an entire month's salary to fix what I just did! _It seems like everywhere we go, we destroy lives. Is that true? Remember the image of the penthouse lying, destroyed, on the Mag Mile in Chicago? They said nobody died, but… That's hard to believe. Remember all those soldiers who died for eight, just to have me not strong enough to save him in the very end? Remember that?

Remember Hector? He gave up his future- whatever that could have been- to save me from a Mog Horde that I couldn't take on my own. Think about Adam. About Sam and Malcolm and Sarah. They've completely decimated any hope they could've had at a life outside of our secret war, and they'll never be able to go back, no matter what happens. Whether we win or not, it won't erase the scars on Sam's wrists.

But me, just me, here and now, can prevent those very same scars on Ella's.

"_We're going,"_ It comes out as a harsh whisper, but Six comes running over and picks me up with a colossal hug.

"Yeah Marina, yeah we are. _Sisters stick together_."

We stay that way for a good minute before the elevator dings open again. I expect to see John come up yelling at us to hurry up- _We've gotta go, guys! What's the holdup!_- but it's not him. It's Nine.

Six and I break apart and I stare at him, wiping my tears away and standing up proud. "Six and me have something to tell you, Nine," I practically order, loudly and forcefully.

He grins. "Actually I, uh, saw the whole thing. Camera room, remember?" He makes a finger pistol and fake-shoots at the camera mounted on the wall behind me and to the right. "And yes, I'm in," He kneels down at our feet, and an image of Eight doing the same thing in Chicago pops into my head. I laugh- loudly, too- and pick Nine up in a hug like six did to me. She joins in and squeezes, and I don't even care that my breath's gone. We're actually doing this.

We're going for Ella.

The three of us grab the chests real quick and make for the car- we've got the truck that we stole from Bro Tank, plus some low-to-the-ground navy blue hot rod- racecar's more like it- that Nine stole a few blocks from our fight scene. I chuck my chest plus Eight's nonchalantly into the bed of the truck before we all jog over to the racecar, where Malcolm and John and Sarah are all standing around a map with a sharpie, plotting our next move, while Adam and Sam are revving up the car and getting the chimaera comfortable. I hear that the plan is to make them all go into some small form- insects, mostly- and leave them with Adam, who seems good with them.

"Hey John-bon!" Nine shouts, raising his hands to his mouth to amplify his voice. "We gotta talk!"

John turns around and looks at Nine, then Six, and finally me. "What's this about, Marina?" _Why me? No. I'm as strong as the rest of them- why not me_. He crosses his arms expectantly, leaning back against the hood of the car.

"Yeah, we made a, umm, decision, you see," I search for the words. "Screw it. It's like this- we're going to rescue Ella, with or without you guys," I stand firm, not moving, tensing everything. But he still shakes his head.

"…No we aren't," then he leans back and starts marking a path up through Pennsylvania and to New York. I remember my fake SoHo loft- could that actually happen? _No. Maybe afterwards. But now, you have someone who needs you_.

Before I can do anything, Nine charges up to John and spins him around. "So that's it then, John-boy? You _aren't gonna save Ella_?"

He squirms in Nine's grip, then tries "No, Nine, it's just that we can't _do_ that right now! We need to train, we need to find a new home base!"

He points to the map. "Just looks like more running to me."

John's face darkens. "What. Can't handle a few days on the run after living in Chicago in the sky for years!"

Nine drops John on his ass on the concrete, stomping back to the car. "You just go do that Johnny. We didn't need your _fire_power anyway!"

We're all silent- Malcolm standing there, awkwardly, not saying anything. John whispers quietly with Sarah while Nine gets farther and farther away, eventually starting the truck and driving up to where Six and me still stand. "C'mon, if they're out, then we can get going faster, right?" he shouts from the truck's window.

I give a final glare at John then turn around. Just as I throw the door open, he yells, "Wait!" I turn around, but it's me this time that's silent. What can he have to say? He doesn't want to help Ella. That's it, then. "Wait, guys. It's just, I don't think it's the right move at all!"

Nine yells at him, "Well we do!" and spits in his direction, landing right next to his feet.

John sighs, giving one, then two sighs in frustration. "Fine. But if we get killed doing this, it's on you guys!"

"Fair enough. We won't, though," Nine jeers.

**_So. Chapter Eleven. Awesomesause. Thanks for all the pretty people who reviewed a followed and faved, and I'd love it if some of you readers who don't would! Kay. Bye guys. _**


	12. Twelve- During the Fissure

Throwing the door to the truck closed, I look out over the rolling West Virginian mountains. They're nowhere near as tall as the Rockies- like I've ever been to the _Rockies to begin with_- and there are green trees everywhere. It's full up spring here, and it's evident.

Six breathes in the warm air, then looks off to the south, where the hills gradually increase. "It's been a while, that's for sure."

"It's only been, like, a month and a half here," Nine chuckles as I hear his door slam shut from the other side of the truck. "I bet they missed me lots."

"_Yeah_, sure thing, _Stanely_," Six jeers.

Nine leaps the hood of the truck and lands right in front of her, the hand pistol flipping back out again and pointing at her. "Yeah, it is a sure thing, _Maren Elizabeth_." As he says it, Adam drops out of the sky and lands off to my right, followed by everyone else. Then the chimaera land next to them, forming back into the herd of dogs. We figured that the racecar wouldn't hold up all that well in this rugged, hilly terrain, so they got out and flew here.

"Hey guys," I can't hide the tiredness in my voice, even though this was my idea. Huh. If that doesn't reassure them, _nothing_ will. Adam waves silently before looking out across the mountains, Dust trotting up to him and standing idle, next to him.

"Hey, Marina," John says. Sarah and Sam still aren't talking to me. They go over and stand by Adam, Sarah taking tufts of his fur in her palm. I _said_ I was sorry… for… throwing them against a brick wall… Yeah, I can _understand_ it. Doesn't mean I like it.

Six steps up to John, then points out over the valley. "So, it's that way a ways, if I remember right."

John nods. "Yeah, your memory worked pretty good last time, I'd say," pointing his thumb back at Nine, who perks up.

"What?"

"Nothing."

He lets it go. Not before staring John down for a while, though. Dat evil eye.

"So what, are we walking in again?" John inquires.

Six ponders this for a second. "Acually, we could fly in, like you guys did," she glances over at Adam, whom, by the way, has all seven chimaera clustered around him. Even BK. What's up with that!

He shakes his head. "No… only seven birds."

"What about when you and Adam escaped the penthouse? BK picked you both up at once, remember?"

"Fair enough," he concedes. "But they still can't actually come in the front door."

"Yeah, there is that," she makes this _tsk-tsk_ sound that I thought only old women made. "Hmm."

"We could always leave them with the humans," Nine says. "Let them stay in the nearest town until we get back, them taking care of the chimaeras and all."

Sarah's head whips around and she stomps over to our circle. _Huh, we formed a circle_. "No. No, I'm not here to sit around and babysit! I want to be out there!"

John takes her by the hand. "No, Nine may actually have a point. _Surprisingly_. It's dangerous in there, more dangerous than anything you've ever done. Maybe all of you should sit this one out. Just let us and Adam handle it."

She keeps shaking her head. "John, I thought you'd never leave me again! We stick together, remember?" But John's already made up his mind. He picks her up by the waist and deposits here lightly by our truck.

"I won't be more than a few hours…," he says, kissing her hand and walking back over to us. "So are we doing this or what?"

"Yeah!" Nine runs over and grabs John by the neck, putting him in a headlock. "Nice to have good Johnny back!"

John pushes him away. "Whatever. Let's get going."

"So we are walking in?" Six tries.

"No, let's just sprint it," John offers. "I'll take Adam on my back, if that's okay with you."

Adam doesn't realize he's been mentioned until he notices that we're all looking at him. "_What_?"

"I said, you won't mind me taking you in on my back, right?"

He shakes his head. "No, not at all. Yeah, that's not a problem."

John nods. "Cool," then he turns back to us. "Alright? Everyone ready for this?"

"Yeah!" Me and Six shout at once. I didn't even know I could be that loud when I'm so tired. Huh. Nine just shrugs.

"Sure man, whenever," but I can tell that he's itching for action, too. The last action he got was _against_ everyone else, so that didn't work too well. Adam hops on John's back, piggy-back style, and we take off across the valley.

_God, it's been a while since I could run this fast. When was it… In the everglades, when we made our great escape. _We're at the cliff overlooking the entrance in a minute. It's pretty well hidden, and John's right- you can't see it unless you're looking for it. The dead animal corpses kind of give it away, though.

"So what happens when we get inside?" Nine tries. "I remember the big hollow cave with the branches leading off, but there's no telling where Ella is…," he trails off.

John drops Adam off his back and reaches his hand up to his face in contemplation.

"Here, how about this," Nine says, before reaching up to John's forehead and pressing in deep, before a blast of wind hits him in the face. "There. You guys, too," He does the same thing to Six, then me, then Adam. "That should help."

"What are you saying?"

"Well, if we run on the ceiling, then they can't really reach us, right?"

John nods slowly. "Yeah… Here, I've got an idea."

We literally explode through the front door. John said that last time, there was a blue, bubble-like force field protecting the entrance, but obviously they weren't expecting to get attacked today. Advantage- us.

There's a long tunnel carved into the rock here, with Mogs on either side in what look like guard-tower things. Not a problem. Correographed with Six, I jump up onto the wall and run up to them. The same wave of nausea hits me as it always does when I use Nine's legacy, but I grit and bare it and Hop up into the tower, kicking right through the Mog that stands there and out the other side, landing with a grunt on the wall.

_Well, ouch_.

No. No stopping. Keep running. Up onto the ceiling, Me and Six together burst out into the main area- _fuck it's huge_! You could fit a whole town inside the mountain! Way down below I can see the green lava that John was bragging about. He said he'd probably make for there first then get back up to us when he's done.

We shouldn't split up! That's what I argued, but I was outnumbered by the others saying that it'd get the job done faster. It's me and Six together in the spaces near the roof, and John and Adam making for the bottom, and Nine searching everything in the middle sections. I see the three of them sprint down then side of the wall, telekinetically taking out almost all the Mogs on the numerous bridges that span the enormous gap.

Nine peels off from them as I reach the very top of the structure. The green lava's way up above me now, all the remaining Mogs start firing their blasters vertical towards the two figures peeling across the walls. It's weird- it's like I'm at the bottom of a rocky bowl with all this stuff up above me. I can't even tell that I'm upside down until I start to think about it- My hair isn't falling down or anything like that.

"C'mon, Mar!" Six shouts at me. I realize I'm just standing here like an idiot and I take off after her as she reaches the first tunnel. "Ready for this?"

I nod, and we take off down the hallway. Searching for cells. Anything, a prison, anything. "I kind of remember where they held me…," she trails off, not even breaking of sweat yet. "Here, follow me," she abruptly turns down a corridor to my right, and I have to stop myself and turn with her. Now I'm like fifteen feet behind. _Great_.

Six spots a Mog patrolling the hallway before I do, and she cancels out her fake gracity and drops in on him from the ceiling, knocking him out but not killing him. She leaps back up to me and grins smugly. I don't ask her about it- I just keep going.

In five minutes we've found this place where the cells appear to start. There's bars lining the walls and even prisoners in a few- we can't stop. We can't save them all. We're here for one and one only.

Up ahead there's what looks like a wide opening, and in it there's three Mogs standing around, talking. Their blasters are propped up against the stone wall to the left, and they don't even notice us as we tear up above them. It's a big room- why would it be so big? _Doesn't matter_.

I see what Six is doing before she does it- the same thing she did with the Mog in the hallway. She leaps off the roof and flies into the face of one of the Mogs, bashing the other two's heads together. One of them- the one she flew into- struggles to get up, and she stomps down on his stomach.

"TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!" Damn, she's ferocious.

The Mog stops struggling and looks up at her, shading his eyes from the light that hangs awkwardly out of the ceiling. "Where who is?"

"Number Ten!"

"What?" He bashes at her foot again, and she pushes down, cracks forming in the concrete all around him. If he doesn't talk soon, he's going through the floor.

"I said, Ella! The Garde you kidnapped!"

He tries to look up at her again, but his soulless, black eyes can't take the fluoresce of the light and he has to look away again. "Oh, you mean the Garde kid? Is that what you want?" She presses harder and he squeals. _Ha_! I didn't know Mogs made that sound, but I want her to make more of them make it. _Are you really like that, Mar? Wanting to torture people?_

_Yup._

"Yeah! What else would I want, bitch!" She takes her other foot and kicks him in the side of the head, hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to knock him out.

"Auh!" He cries out. "Please, I'll tell you, just don't do that!"

"Talk, mother fucker!" Six gets right up in his face when he says it, and I see the spittle fly.

"It's-," he's cut off by coughing, a dark, black blood coming up all over his face. "Sector H. Cell-," more coughing-, "Three-hundred and ninety-four!"

"Thanks," Six says in her most girly voice and punches him upside the head, bashing it into the concrete. That's it for him! We take off back down our hallway, not noticing the flashing red light on the wall.

All of the sudden the lights shut off. Even with my legacy, I can tell- suddenly the edges of my vision darken our and are gone. It's like tunnel vision, except worse, because I have to _run_ like this. "Marina!" I turn around to see Six groping the walls behind me. _Yeah. That._

"I'm coming, Six!" Just as I start over there, an explosion rocks the base and sends flakes of rock and dust floating down from the ceiling, and with it, the lights snap on once, then off, then slowly flicker back on.

I grab Six up, who shields her eyes just like the Mog. As I get ready to run off down the corridor, a shrieking sound pierces what's like, my whole brain. I clutch my ears and drop to the ground, but it doesn't stop.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E

_What the hell!_

_EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E_

_What the fucking hell!_

I open my eyes- I closed them?- for a second to see that Six is on the ground, too. She writhes there, overwhelmed. I- What is it!?

_Guys! What are you doing! Get out of here!_ It's Ella! She's the one who sent the screech! It stops as she finishes talking, but I can hear the desperation in her telepathy. _What are you doing! Why are you here1 Get away1 Get out! GO!_

Then I hear what I think is Nine's voice. _What the fuck! Ella! What is that noise!_

Then John. _Ella! What was that about! We're here to rescue you!_

_Guys, I don't have time to explain. Just. Get. Away!_ That last word sounds so forced, and when it cuts out I can tell she's gone. I call to the others- Nine, John, anybody. It feels like a part of me is gone- Like I can't feel my hand anymore. Like an organ's missing. What happened?

I grapple the floor, not fully able to stand up, so I touch the wall and transfer gravity over to it. That way I use the floor to push off of, and, hey, I'm on my feet. On the wall. Then I step off onto the floor and Help Six up, dusting myself off.

I can see fear in her eyes. For the first time today, not when we first arrived at the place where she was tortured, not when the lights went out, but right now. What just happened?

"C'mon. Let's find her."

"But she said to get away!" Six screams at me.

"She's being manipulated!" I scream back. "They're forcing her to!"

Six looks reluctant, but she still follows me onward.

We turn the corner- the _first freaking corner_- and see that a few hundred or so feet ahead of us, a Mog horde is charging at us. The fact that we're here registers with them, and the front lines fire a round of blaster fire. I duck behind the corner of the corridor to hide.

I see Six jump out at them, taking the burning ball of plasma and levitating it in the air. Then she focusses on it and forces it to expand- her elemental legacy, I realize- creating a giant flamethrower, torching all the front line Mogs.

"Go!" She shouts. "Find Ella!"

"No! I can stay and help you!"

I charge out into the corridor, but she pulls me back with her TK. It's like she shoots an invisible rope around my waist and drags me back to her. "I got this!" The confidence returns to her eyes, and she shoves me off down the corridor. "Meet up back in the town we sent the humans too! In a few hours!" And with that, she forces her and her improv flamethrower down the hallway.

And I'm alone.

Alone as I rush down the halls, looking for anything that would pronounce the area as _Sector H_. I cross a threshold, the walls suddenly painted black, unlike the regular stone and concrete mix that makes up the rest of the place. With the change, I see a white _J_ painted on the side of the wall.

_A,B,C,D-,E,F,G-__**H**__,I,__**J**_. I sing the alphabet song in my head as I run. I'm close.

I cross another threshold- this one with a _K_ painted on it. Nope. Wrong way. I turn on a dime and run off down the corridor, feeling the sweat drip off my face.

Back to the black painted area. I don't care why it's special- I just run right through it, back to the place where I left Six. In what I realize is Area _I_.

I look down at the place where she left me. There's ash all around- chips out of the side of the walls, burning plasma marks everywhere. But no horde. And no Six.

_Don't stress it. Six can take care of herself_. Still, as I run past the piles of ash, I'm hit with that same feeling that I got, way long ago. Back on the farm. I hear the silent humming, I see the sparkle-sparkle at the edge of my vision.

_Still not important. Keep running_.

Eventually I pass into Sector H. _So many cells_. Why would they make this many cells? Almost none of them are occupied. Did they actually expect to take this many prisoners? _Have_ they taken this many prisoners?

_Nope. Don't think about that. I'm at Cell Three Hundred. Keep running_. I have to push myself to keep going. Three-fifty. Keep going. She's here somewhere. Three-eighty. The adrenaline is killing me- What kind of machine is restraining her? Is she knocked out? What was with the scream- are they torturing her now? I'm not sure I could see that.

_Three ninety. Ninety-one. Ninety-two. Ninety-three._

Ninety Four. I stop running and peer into the cell, expecting to see a captive Ella, curled up into a ball or something.

Nope. That's not what's here at all. _At all_.

**_Chapter 12, Everyone! So, yeah. Three guesses what's going on in the cell. _**

**_And a big thanks to everyone who reviewed, everyone who keeps rewvieing, and everyone who will review in the future. It means a lot._**


	13. Thirteen- Through Beady Eyes

13- The air around me is suddenly cold. Cold as _ice_. I _could _try and concentrate, like John said he can do to control his Lumen. But I'm not sure I want to.

I can see my breath suddenly, and it gets so cold that the moisture in the air freezes and drops out of the sky like rain, landing with soft _pings_ on the frozen floor.

_Bastard!_ Are you kidding me! What is _he _doing here! It's not Ella at all! It's fucking _Five_! He's slumped in the back of the cell, looking up at me with strained eyes, face bruised and beaten.

_Perfect fucking condition_. _He'll Die here!_ Without even giving it a second, I rip apart the bars and throw them against the wall, sending them straight through the solid concrete and out the other side. I step forward and he crawls back, pushing into the wall with his legs. Hard. Fucking hard. That's right, _cry, bitch_.

_Bam!_ I slap him hard across the face with TK and he doubles over. I don't evne let him land before I lift him off his feet and slam him- _up, down, UP, DOWN_, into the ceiling and the floor! Each time he hits, it leaves a little dent in the surface and shakes more rock bits off the ceiling, fogging up the room. I step out and he goes into this insane coughing fit from all the dust and debris.

_That's right. Let him choke. Let him suffer. _I'm so… calm. I was freaked out when I started, but I'm as level-headed as ever as I pull him out manually and flip him onto the ice on the floor, shooting icicles into his arms and legs, pinning him. Watching the blood flow out. _Suffer…_

"Marin-," he coughs up.

I punch him in the jaw to shut him up. "DON'T TALK TO ME!" Then I punch him again! And again! And again! I'm screaming! Who cares! I'm screaming louder! Who cares! I'm gonna bring the entire damn place falling down around us as I do this- The walls are shaking, reverberating whenever I scream. I scream louder, the walls shake under me, bouncing Five around like a ragdoll. _He deserves it._

I pick him up and throw him into a nearby wall, but he transforms into rock as he lands, going through the wall and into a corridor on the other side. Then he dusts himself off, still in rock form, and jumps back through his hole, coming up to my face. I can see his stone chest breathing in and out, though I can't see any marks or blood in his form.

I'm airborne. Suddenly my feet aren't standing on ice anymore- they're way up in the sky. And then, _Boom!_ I see stars and my vision fades as I hit something- is it the roof? Oh my god.

I try to control my breathing, but it quickens. I can't let it slow down. _I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. This fucker is gonna kill me. Like Eight. Like Eight.. Like Eight!_ I push against his TK with my own, struggling and pushing, but he's rock hard.

His voice is staggered when he talks. "Marina," he pants. "I don't want to fight you."

"I know!" I spit. "You want me to join the Mogodorians!"

He shakes his head, solemnly. "If I-," pant. Cough. Cough. "Set you down, do you promise not to-," Wheezing cough. It sounds horrible. Fucker. "Try and kill me?"

What? _What_? Is he pleading for his life? His sad, pathetic, _Eight Killing Life!_ "No, you bastard! _You bastard!_ I'm gonna kill you! I'm gonna send you up to fucking Heaven! So Eight can deal with you! Because he could! He sacrificed himself to save his friends! You'd never know because YOU DON'T _HAVE ANY_!"

In the same instant that those final words leave my mouth, I struggle free of his giant invisible hand and I drop, flipping as fast as I can and landing on my feet, sending ripples of rock flying up all over. I take a step towards him, and he holds his hands up, but doesn't un-rock. "Can we talk?"

"NO!" I scream, and shoot a huge chunk of the wall out at him. It breaks in half on his body and sails into the opposing wall, crashing around and collapsing the ceiling. That crumbles around him, too, and he tries to jump out of the way.

It happens so fast. The tides turn _again_ just that fast. He sails as quickly as he can out of the way of the virtual falling boulder, but he can't get away. It crunches and he screams as it falls on his rock legs, and he flashes and now he's back to his fleshy form. As soon as he transitions, I hear a _craaa-ckk_, followed by him screaming even louder. "Marina! Help ME!"

"No!" I breathe. In and out. In and Out. No need for panic. I've got him now.

I jump over to him just as the ice dissipates from the floor, landing with a thud on his back. He arches it and howls, and I yank back on his pendant, forcing his head up so his eyes meet mine. "You don't deserve to wear this!" I yank it fee, the Loric string snapping like a rubber band and the pendant itself falling to the floor with a clang, bouncing around and coming to a rest. I feel it in my hand. It feels just like mine- except this is Five's. _Five's. The sick traitor who killed Eight. Who told the Mogs where to find Ella._

_Ella! _Where is she! I smash his face into the ground one more time, surely breaking his nose for the five-hundredth time. Then I yank back- it's hard to grip his shaved head- and do the same meet-eyes thing. "I'll tell you what, Mog-Boy."

_Ella. She's all that I have left. Adelina. Hector. Crayton. Eight. Six. Ella._ Ella is all I _have_. I _can't_ let them have that too.

"What!" He cries, his desperation making me laugh. Bringing me joy. _Is this really who I am? Torturing Five? Is this really the time and place to think aobut that! I need one thing from him. One thing. That means getting him safe._

"I'll let you go…," I say slowly. His neck muscles strain, as if he's trying to nod, but I've got him under control. "If you tell me where they're keeping Ella…"

"Deal!" He winces, loudly, horribly.

"Fine! Tell me." The words are laced with poison and curtness.

He pauses, breathing hard. "I'll tell you when we get out of here and we're safe!" _Damnit! I showed him my bargaining chip!_

Wait. He's a Mog, right? "Hold up. You _are_ safe here. This is like, your freaking childhood home!"

"Get off of me and I'll explain…," his words are faint, and I realize just there that my knees are wet. I look all around me to see his blood. Five's blood. The traitor's blood. _But he knows where Ella is_.

Shoving the rocks away from his mangled body, I press my hands into his legs, the icy feeling shooting through me like a bullet and seeping out my fingertips.

I move on to the rest of him- He's even worse than Nine was in the Everglades. _Five fault, don't forget_. Yeah. I know. I'm helping a traitor. That doesn't mean I heal both his legs. Just the one. He can manage.

I come to his face- with all the bruises and the pleading, little-kiddy eyes. _Do I really wanna heal any of that?_ No. He doesn't need dignity. His face is shattered and he's going to live with it. _Better deal than Eight got_.

I get to my feet, already having healed myself. My legs are stained red and there's nothing I can to about it. _Five's blood. On my hands, on my legs_. Oh, get over yourself! Get over your fucking self! It's Five! He deserves what's coming to him!

He jumps up, solidifying into stone in midair and crunching the floor below him when he lands with a heavy thud. "Let's get out of here. I'll explain everything," he nods.

"Uh-huh. I don't _care_ about that, that's the thing. You're gonna take me to Ella, and," I unconsciously purse my lips. "We'll see."

"I will take that bet," he chuckles to himself. _Chuckles. Chuckles! How can he chuckle! He knows I'm here, he knows I hate him! How can he be enjoying this or something!_ Does he feel my pain? Is it that palpable?

_Oh, just shut up, Mar. _Get outa here, get regrouped in the station- convince Nine not to _kill_ Five, just to seriously maim him, all's good. Then we'll find Ella and throw Five off a cliff. Good? Good.

We're getting ready to take off down the hall when he turns around and looks at me apprehensively. "I really am sorry about Eight,"

"Oh, shut the hole in your face. Let's just move," Stern. Stubborn. Not old Marina. Not at all.

He doesn't stop talking though. _He doesn't stop talking!_ "I mean, I was trying to get Nine, because he's a dick. You know. You met him, right," he shrugs.

I scoff. "You know he's here, right now, right? Looking for Ella, like me, like all of the rest of the _rightful_ Garde!"

He shakes his head. "You'll never understand."

Understand what? All that? About his bullying problem? Poor him. I can tell an attention whore when I see one. He just wants me to say, "what's up?" and he can confess his love for Mogs to me again. Nope. We're going. Before my minds registers it I'm running, faster and faster, hearing the stone rumbles and seeing the room vibrate when Five's heavy feet lomp across the floor.

"Marina! Wait! I forgot something important!" _What now_?

I stop and slide to a halt on my ice like Tom Cruise in whatever movie Nine wouldn't stop talking about. The one where he doesn't have any pants on. Good times.

Five comes barreling down the hall and presses his body into a tuck and dives into the floor, cratering it and crashing to stop his momentum.

He unrocks in front of me and makes a move towards me. _What! No1 Get away, rat!_ I swat his hand and he looks hurt, but he tries again. "Trust me, just once…,"

I hiss, "Never," as bitchily as I can at him, and slap him across the face. He rocks up and his expression stones, so that his eyes are little beads in the gray, cracked face.

"I just wanna give you flight, Marina," he tries.

"Hmm? How?"

"I can transfer legacies."

"Like Nine?"

He sighs. "Yeah. Like that bastard."

I tense up. "That's my friend you're talking about," _In what universe do I defend Nine?_

This one. But only because there's a bigger dick in the room.

"Fine," I jut my face out and I feel his rocky thumb on my forehead. My hair blows back and I feel electricity in the air- not my electricity, just, smoky. I dunno.

He backs up. "There, okay? Don't kill me."

"Whatever. Let's get out of here," I start forward again, or rather, try, because before I know it I fly ahead instead of running.

_Woah! Woah! Woah! Fuck! _I skim the edges of the tunnel and feel the rug burn, but I can't stop. _I can't stop. Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

I don't even know if Five's behind me. I don't really _care_.

Around a tight corner. _Shit, shit, shit, I'm gonna slam into it!_

I make it. Flying. I've gotta be going, like, two hundred miles per hour as I blast through the tunnels like a firecracker. But he's faster. He's back to his own self, and he flashes past me going, three times my speed, maybe. "FOLLOW ME!"

He slows down to match me, and I watch as he plows a chunk of rock off the roof like a bulldozer. What's he planning? I dunno. But I do the same.

Wait, did he transfer _all his legacies_ to me? I hold the rock out, still shooting down the corridor, and concentrate hard on it.

_ROCK. CONCRETE. I HEART THOU. DO SOMETHING_.

I feel it as it happens. My skin- it doesn't feel right. It feels like- _like I'm covered in a giant scab! Gross!_

I try and shake it off, but it's the rock. It's coating my everything. It's… a weird. Feeling. Yup.

It doesn't feel quite as heavy as it looks. It seems to lift itself up, and I have my full mobility. Like a suit of armour. It's cool. Gross, but cool.

Five tucks in his legs and speeds up, twice as fast as me, three fimes, almost _Four Times as fast_! Holy God!

He's headed straight for the wall! At the end of the corridor! Fuck! Fuck! I can't lose him n- did I really just think that? Bitch. Please.

The wall explodes as he hits it and it crashes inward, the heavy stone slabs falling away into… the main antechamber of the place! The giant cave with the green spirt at the bottom! We're back here!

He slows really suddenly, making a motion like a figure skater on ice with his legs to slow as the rocks and pebbles and other assorted bits fly all around.

I try and stop, but I just keep going, like I'm the rookie in the skates, slipping around on the ice. At three hundred miles per hour. Yup.

The other wall's coming up fast. _Think fast, dammit! Now!_ One option. I pull up, barely skimming the wall as I shoot forward.

_The roof. The roof. It's right there It's right there_. No option. I clutch the rock to my chest as scream, feeling the scab cover my body again.

There's an explosion or dust and dirt and then, just as quickly, I'm outside. I feel the wind on my skin- _skin_ and not rock- and I'm blinded by the sun. I'm still going up, though.

_Stop! Flying! Get! Down!_ Why can't I stop! How did I start again? By, like, springing forward, or something. Like that. So, just, stop, right? It's like running, just stop moving!

I manage to turn around, and as I do Five punches out the top of the mountain like Mario and gracefully flies up, swooping down and accelerating towards me. "HOW DO YOU STOP!" I scream.

I think I hear him say, "just stop!"

Thanks. That helps.

I watch the trees and hills shoot by below- this is not the direction of the town! Is it? I have no idea! What?

_Just stop. Halt. Just breathe, and, stop._

And like that, I feel the wind rush up to meet me. I stare down at the ground as it rushes up at me, the wind blowing fiercely in my mouth, blinding me in my eyes.

Then I'm yanked upward by an invisible hand and jerked off to the side of the scene- very _ungracefully_- and plopped down in a valley, where Five lands next to me in the tall mountain grass.

He takes a second to breathe in, smiling contently to himself. "Marina, I think it's time I tell a story."


	14. Fourteen- Secrets

14- It goes like this. I last saw Five in the Everglades about a week and a half ago. That's when we abandoned him, Six saying something about the Mogs surrounding him- I don't really remember. Anyway, sure, they were working to pry him out of the ice and stop his eye from bleeding, but they were also throwing comments his way. _'Weakling' 'The Beloved Leader will be very displeased with your work, Number Five' 'If I had the choice, I'd get rid of you right now. You've showed your purpose'_

So basically, they were saying he was a good-for-nothing dumb-fuck who failed at his only job- to get Pittacus Lore. At least that's what Five tells me- that he's being ridiculed for not killing Pittacus. Sektrakus Ra arrives soon after and laughs at Five- lying on the ground in defeat, clutching at his face- and kicks him in the side, saying how he's a failure, that he killed Number Eight- _oh yes, he did that_- but that his goal was to get Pittacus Lore, and if he had done it, then Ra would've felt it.

Long story short, he didn't.

Anyway, that's all he remembers from that. Next thing he knows, he's in West Virginia, pinned to this wheel- he says it looks like the one from Wheel of Fortune- limbs splayed out, spinning slowly in the darkness of the cave. Every once in a long while, a voice will stumble by- someone to scoff at him, someone to laugh, someone to prod him with swords. They aren't allowed to kill him he deduces- he guesses that's because they want to keep him, they just want to make a point. They want to show him the Mogadorian Way, if you get something wrong, it doesn't go well.

Well, he doesn't take kindly to this, and right around the time I'm playing with dead bunnies in the woods, Five takes an opportunity. The next person to poke him with a sword, really gets it- he metals up with the metal from the sword. Just for a second, before they pull it away, but it's enough to break the shackles and land him on the rocky ground, where he rocks up and smashes his way out to the entrance, but they throw up a force field to keep him inside.

He keeps charging anyway, and gets completely owned by the blue bubble-shield. He's out again, and wakes up some time later in the cell I found him in, the same bubble flickering out in front of him. They don't feed him or anything, just let him lay there, wallow in his guilt.

"I changed, in that cell, Marina, I promise," he says with force. When I don't say anything, he continues. "These people, I knew I was never one of them. But they made it too obvious when they treated me like a pig! Like an _animal!_"

"So what? You get locked up for a while, think about how much of a whore you are, then you just join the cause again? It doesn't work like that," my voice is softer now, winding down. I'm lying down in the valley we're in, staring up at the fading light of the sky, feeling the wind brush all around us. The tall grass sways in the breeze, moving to and fro, its color a soft green.

Five is pacing off to my right, his arms tucked behind his neck, elbows in the air, like you do during a cool-down. He keeps changing, first he's made out of packed dirt, then his skin blazes the soft green of the grass. It's weird- he looks like an alien in that last one. I mean, a Martian. With the green skin and all.

He stops and looks over at me, and I meet his eyes. "Yeah, I know there's no way I can undo what I did, and there's never going to be any way I'll be able to say how sorry I feel for Eight…,"

"That's a mouthful."

"-But that doesn't mean I'm on your side. The cause, I mean."

I sit up. "What are you saying?"

He shrugs. "I'm _saying_ that the Elder's plan is stupid. I mean, how can they expect us, a bunch of kids, to do anything? What can we do against the Modagorians? An Alien Army? I may not like them much, but that doesn't change the fact that they're still the winning side."

Jumping to my feet, I rush over and grab him by the front of the shirt. He turns to a white and black rock all of the sudden- must be something in his hands- and pushes me away. "There's no denying the truth, Marina. That doesn't mean I'm not willing to help you, you know. Just to get my revenge. Then I'm gonna go off, have a life somewhere, you know."

"Well maybe _I don't need your help_," I almost spit.

"Hey, sit down, sit down. Don't go crazy, I'm just saying what I need to say, and that is that I _want_ to help. I need my retribution."

"For what! For a few days in a cell, all doe-eyed and penniless!"

He shakes his head. "It's more than that. All my life, I've been the outlier, you know? Never being able to fit in. While everyone else is celebrating over the death of Two in London, I'm lying on the floor, screaming, because of the scar, and no one's helping. They're staring and pointing and laughing, and I bet half of them are consciously thinking that once they get Number Four, I'll be out of the club in a second."

Number Two. So she died in London. That's how it went. "Tell me about her, Number Two."

He scratches his head. "What is there to tell? I was twelve when they got her, and my foster family was military oriented, so we were on the second plane over there to engage her Cepan in that bus battle."

"Oh, you mean the London bus bombings! Those were you guys trying to get at Two?"

"Yup. Brutal, but Mogadorian Progress, you know?"

"No, Five, I don't. Now tell me, what was Two, _like_?"

"How am I supposed to know? I wasn't there when they got her! I was in the surveillance room in a skyscraper, admiring the scene! When they brought her body back, draped in a cloth, I only got a peek! She was my age, kind of dorky looking with these glasses and frizzled red hair," he mutters.

"What? They took her body?"

"Umm, yeah. We take all the bodies of the dead from the Lorics. I mean-," he corrects himself. "_They _ take _our_ dead and keep their bodies preserved, down in a basement in Washington DC. One and Three are there, too, along with Two's Cepan. He was the only one they wanted to keep, because he seemed to be more in the game than the other two, if you know what I mean."

"_That's sick_."

"Remember when the human's dad was talking about that rouge Mogadorian, the one who saw One's memories?"

I think about Adam. He's still in the mountain, I presume. I wish I had some way to call them all out here, to regroup and try to connect the thought I can't seem to connect. All this information that Five's dumping on me- it has a purpose. I know what I'm looking for is in it somewhere- the question is, what am I looking for?

I nod. "His name's Adamus, and he came here to rescue Ella with me."

He waves his hand. "Whatever his name is, he makes my point. How they preserve the bodies."

Hmm. So they preserve their dead bodies, and-

Wait a second. _Wait a second_. What I'm looking for. It's right there. Remember when Six died in that car crash? _No, she didn't die, stupid. _I felt the scar! I swear I did! I felt the scar and then it healed off! I woner why John doesn't talk about it… Nine wouldn't see it because he was knocked out… wasn't he?

But Five would've felt it, too.

"Wait a sec, Five?"

"Yeah? What," he says.

"Did you, uh, feel anything weird when you were in the cell? Or on the wheel?"

"Well, _yeah_. That's kind of the point of being in there, I guess. What's your point?"

"No, no, no, no, I mean with your ankle. Like, maybe the first day, maybe earlier, did you feel anything going on with your ankle?"

He narrows his eyes. "What are you getting at?"

"Just answer the question."

He looks at me for a second more, then nods. "Yeah, actually. It felt like another scar, but I couldn't really see it, I was on the wheel at that point. It lit up the whole room though. Then, right in the middle, maybe after ten seconds, it cut off," he pauses and breathes in. "I actually thought I imagined it. You mean it actually happened?"

I gaze off at the Mog mountain in the distance, then back at him. "Marina, what are you saying? Who died!"

I shake my head. "Nobody."

"But that doesn't make any sense!" When I don't answer, he tries again. "Marina, what are you talking about?" he turns his foot around so I can see it, his pants ripped up to his kneecaps. I see the four circular symbols- count em', One, Two, Three, and, well, and Eight. On Five's leg. _Why did I break him out again?_ "Marina, that's only four. What lit it up!"

"Five, how am I sure I can trust you?"

"Because there's not an army descending on us?"

"Please, there wasn't one last time, not at first," _Actually, there kind of was_.

He lets out a long sigh, then says, "Honestly? I don't know. I know you hate me after Eight, I still feel the marks where you pounded me into oblivion earlier, even though you healed them off. I've created a scar on you, on all of our legs, but yours cut deeper than anyone else's, and I'm sorry about that. I'll never get a chance to redeem myself after that, so all I can do is apologize. As for trust," he waves his arms. "I dunno."

I wait until he's stopped speaking for a few moments before I talk. "Actually…," I say coyly. "You might get that chance."

"What are you _talking_ about?"

I take a second, reveling in the fact that I'm ahead of him. I'm ahead of the Mogs, too, if he's still with them. Something tells me he isn't, though. He's still a dick, but if what I'm thinking is right, then I won't have a grudge to hold for much longer.

"What if I told you that someone actually _did_ die?"

"Well, I'd say that didn't happen," he swivels his leg around again, flashing his set of scars. Four. Not Five.

"How do you explain the light?"

He shrugs. "Some… I don't know, okay! Just tell me! Enough with the suspense!"

"Fine. I'd tell you that it actually happened. Because it did. Me, Six and Nine were running away from the Everglades in a stolen car, when we got in a fight and swerved into the other lane, slamming head first into another car. I ran to get Nine to safety first, then dove back in to get Six, but found her with, like, this girder driven through her chest," at this, Five gasps.

"You said she was here, though!"

"She was. We split up just before I got to you- she headed off a horde."

"But… wait… what _happened_, Marina?"

"She died that night, Five," this is it. My biggest secret to a would-be-traitor. "But I brought her back."

"What! It doesn't work that way!" He exclaims. "It doesn't _work_ that way!"

I smirk. "They're Legacies, Five. They work however you can use them."

I can see the gears turning in his head. In his eyes. I can see him connecting the dots, slowly. Then quickly. "Are you saying that you have the Legacy to raise the dead?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Wow," he shakes his head. "_Wow_, this changes the war. This changes _everything_."

"So, I guess, what I'm really asking, is how do I get at the dead Garde?"

His mouth hangs open. "They're, uh, held in Ashwood. Or were, at least, until an earthquake hit last year. Adamus's earthquake, if I had to guess."

"Adam was in Ashwood? With the dead Garde?"

"Yeah, I guess so. A few months ago, around Thanksgiving. He escaped with Malcolm, who we had preserved in these cryo-pump stations. I don't really understand it, I just know it keeps the patients in a suspended indefinitely."

"Okay, that's great and all. You said they _were_ held there?"

He nods. "Yeah, then after the quake, they were worried that they might get damaged or something, because, you know, they already survived an earthquake that took out the entire complex. So they moved them far away."

"Far away? Like, where are we talking about?"

"If I remember correctly, someplace around Istanbul. They wanted to put them in a place no one would ever think."

"Istanbul, as in Istanbul, _Turkey_?"

He nods.

"But why would they keep them in the first place? Why go to the trouble of hiding them, rather than just throwing them in the ocean or something?"

"Like I said, I don't really understand it. All I know is that the Beloved Leader wanted them, he said something about them having a bigger purpose in the grand scale of things, or something like that. I honestly didn't really care at that point."

"Why not?"

He looks away from my gaze, staring off at the sunset. "There was a phase I went through when I convinced myself I was a Mogadorian- built like a tank, I'd be the general one day. That was before my legacies arrived, and the one scar on my leg I could care less about. Just a mark showing how I'm destined to rule or something cheesy like that."

"Wait. Did anyone else know you weren't a Mog?"

"Well, some noticed that I wasn't as pale as the others, but other than that, not really. I actually, uh, hmm. Wow, this is awkward."

I shove him in the shoulder. "C'mon, what?"

"I, uh, got a tattoo on my head. Marks me as a _Grossinger_, you know. That's actually Mogodorian for their lowest rank, it's like a private."

"Woah! You're in their military?"

"Yeah. That's why I grew my hair out a little, because my mission was to infiltrate your ranks. This is after I recognized I was a Garde, and the little friends I had left when I started floating up to the ceiling during the feast celebrating the opening of Plum Island."

"Plum Island?"

He sighs. "You know, Marina, I actually don't really want to go into my personal life right now. I'm kind of under some turmoil, and I just want to sleep, to be honest."

_He's been sleeping for a week!_ "Just, what are your legacies, actually? I know you've got flight and Externa, the legacy sharing thing that Nine has. But what else?"

"Well, I've got a lot, actually. I developed mine really early on, compared to your stories. My flight came, as I told you, after One's death, but before Two's. That legacy thing was next, but I didn't really use it all that much. Then telekinesis- I actually found out about that one in the middle of training one day, when I was knocked to the floor by some huge dude, and when my arms swept back it sent three or four punching bags hurling at his head. Explain _that _one to your teacher.

"The next one came a few months later, I was running a surveillance mission, flying over this plucky town in northern Mexico that we suspected a Garde was using as a safe house. Turns out that was Six, I know know, but back then, when I didn't see anything, I assumed a planted story and moved on. Then, as I'm flying back, and suddenly I drop out of the sky. I don't even know why to this day, I just know that I start falling, and I manage to catch myself a few feet from the ground and slow down, but not enough. I crash into the desert floor, probably breaking a few ribs in the process. But that's not all- within minutes I'm feeling great again, no idea why. I learn later that I've got this power to regenerate myself, somehow, from whatever injury."

"Oh! That's useful!"

"Yeah, I know. Haven't you noticed that I've got both my eyes?"

_Woah. Mind fuck. How did I not notice that_?

"Yeah, anyway, my latest legacy is Externa. It appeared out of nowhere one day, out of school, I suddenly turned the same color as the couch I was sitting on. It happened out of nowhere, and called my foster mom in to ask what it means when your skin feels itchy all over- some weird Mogadorian disease I picked up. She nearly jumped out of her skin, seeing me. We were never the same."

A few seconds pass of us sitting there, in the valley filled grass and trees, as the sun dips below the horizon. Maybe Five isn't so bad after all. A wayward sheep, I suppose, who got on the wrong track. _This is the guy who killed Eight, remember?_

"So, how did you find us?"

He looks down at the ground and lies back in the grass, before sitting up again. He holds his sides tensly, digging his hands into his pockets as he stands up. "C'mon. He better start back towards the mountain."

"Why?"

"Because we need to reunite with the others, right?"

"Wait, so you really are with me?"

He nods slowly. "Guess so."

There's an awkward silence as we walk, and I wonder for a second why we're not flying. But then it passes.

"So. My story. Anyway, after the death of Three, the Four Generals were fretting over the fact that all of our legacies were developing- they saw me as an example. I could already easily take on a whole squadron, flying around, flashing into hulking metal-man, absorbing blows and repairing myself no matter what kind of abuse I took. I'll tell you, they were scared. That's why they upped the ante.

"They first tried to find the rest of the Garde the usual way- by tracking them over the internet, and that worked, at first, four Number Four at least, but that didn't exactly, go over well for them. Let's say that. So they pulled my chest out of whatever deep crevice they'd hid it in and told me to pull out anything that I could use to help them.

"Just a side note here, I'm pretty sure they din't know the charm was broken by this point, or I'd probably be dead or something," he chuckles at his thought. "Yeah. They never trusted me, but they sure did use me. And my chest. They found the macrocosm thing and sparked it to life, and they had people on it twenty-four-seven, waiting for blips to come up.

"I'm not really sure how they knew how it worked, because I didn't, but eventually, mid-February, they spot a blip down south, in Florida, and send a team to check if it's really anything. They never respond, so we assume something went down over there. Next thing we know, we get another dot, way over in Spain."

"That's me, right?"

"Guess so."

Sigh. "If I hadn't opened that _stupid _ chest, me and Adelina could've gotten away!"

"Actually, we knew you were there for a while. Just didn't know which one to target, and didn't want to nuke the convent or anything. Might be bad for diplomatic relations," Five points out.

"You guys actually care about that stuff?" I sniff deeply. "Always seemed like you just go around, breaking shit and not caring. You know, like Adelina and Hector. Then Crayton!"

"Hey, calm down, I'm explaining, remember?"

I don't answer, but I do listen when he talks. Why? I have no idea. Do I want to know why he's a bad guy? _He's not a bad guy_. He's a good guy, right? A wayward sheep? _Why is he talking about 'we' then?_

" So, I learn later that, at the same time as the Battle of Santa Teresa, the Lorics attack the corrections base in West Virginia, too. People all over are screaming about a coordinated attack, and about how the charm has to be broken by now, how the survivors from Spain clearly saw two Lorics fighting together, maybe even three.

"So they jockey for me to be executed, saying I'm a threat to their cause. But the Beloved Leader intervenes, saying that he's going to test my loyalty. How? By sending me on an odyssey around the world, trying to unite with the other Garde. They keep the macrocosm, and I take off from Washington in early March, searching for any signs.

"I head south, to Brazil, looking for signs of a Garde there, something about a girl lifting a five-ton slab off a man. I don't get anything, and when that doesn't turn up I drift north, uniting with a Mog Base in Jamaica and eating and resting, before shooting off to America.

"This is after the whole thing with Dulce, and I know that you guys are going to be in America after that. They say there was such a flurry of activity on the macrocosm in New Mexico, then it tracks north up to Chicago, but someboy figures out that all five of the Garde are there, and they know they'll lose to frontal assault it.

"So I meet the Beloved Leader in South Carolina and he tells me that he needs an insurgent to go in and separate them and tells me that if I succeed, I'll be the hero of the war. And so here I am," he finishes just as we round the top of a hill, and suddenly the views stretch out below us, the trees and the grass, all a dark green in the fading light. The Mog Mountain rises above all else, half a mile in front, the opening with the dead animals in plain view.

I catch the hill that John, Six, Nine, Adam and me stood on, no more than an hour ago. _I wonder where they are, if they're out_. I hope they're safe, not captured. Who am I kidding? If they were captured, they'd be dead, shot on sight. Based on what Five's telling me, I have no doubts.

We just have to meet up before that happens.


	15. Fifteen- Roar

**_Hey people! Sooooo, Chapter Fifteen's here! Yeah! Props to Arctic Blue, for revising and checking my work and making sure it wasn't completely insane lol. Props to all you readers out there, if you weren't here I'd be out of a job, right? Haha, yup. Just remember, guys, if there's something you like in this massive blob of text, be sure to talk about it! If there's something you don't like, tell me! That's what the freaking review's for! Haha. Okay. Read now :D_**

**15**- We start down the hill, the steep incline pulling me to walk faster than I was. I'm still mulling over Five's story, thinking it, raking it with my mental rake, trying to find flaws. It all fits. It explains, well, everything, from top to bottom. How could he make that up on the spot? It's got to be true.

What about him being, well, a good person? I mean, years and years of being, pretty much, discriminated against, sure, but that didn't stop him from betraying us. From killing Eight, remember? Nothing held him back there.

No, no, no, he tried to reason with us. His beef was with Nine, and that was just because Nine was an asshole to him, right? He was taking revenge on Nine because of how he treated him, right? He wasn't trying to kill Eight. He wasn't trying to kill any of the Garde.

Like that's true.

He tried to kill Nine, if that was his main idea in the first place, instead of killing Eight. Wait. He said he and Ra met in South Carolina, and he always seemed pretty keen on going to the Everglades. Coincidence? Probably not. I bet it was all Ra's idea, and Five trying to regain his honor, or, what did he say about it? Making sure he wasn't a traitor?

After what he did, how can I possibly trust him?

All of the sudden I'm thrown out of my thought with a deep rumbling- somewhere deep beneath our feet, down in the depths of the mountain. It sounds like an earthquake- a vicious one, ripping the ground apart, like a low roar. Like a lion, held deep within its rocky cage.

I shoot Five a nervous look, and without saying anything he sparks his thumb against my forehead again and, in the same instant, takes off flying the rest of the way to the mountain. I leap up into the wind and rush off, too, my feet never touching the ground as I shoot above the ground. I'm feet from the trees coating it within five seconds.

Stop. My body obeys this time, and I lurch, feeling as all the blood in my body rushes to one side before slowly dribbling back. I'm floating there, recovering, the whole top half of my body heating up, feeling like it's on fire, while I get pins and needles in the bottom half. As it drains away, I almost miss it- the roaring from below gets louder steadily, as if it's rising up the ground. I hear, almost what sounds like a wicked cracking sound.

I stick my neck out in the direction it's coming from. It's way down at the base of the mountain, but Five's already speeding away. I take a second more to get my head back in the game before following.

The trees, the grass, everything around me is shaking, the pebbles on the ground rumbling and rolling down the hills. Is this Adam? Is he making this? No way he could. His quakes are smaller than this, right? Well, he did bring down Dulce, not to mention Ashwood. But he'd have to be really pissed off. And there's no reason why he would.

Five dives down, shooting through the entrance with the dead animals and back into the fort. I'm hesitant- do I really want to go back there? That's a stupid question, Mar, I tell myself. Six is still there. So are John and Nine and Adam. In there somewhere. Yeah. I shoot right through, in after him.

I don't realize what's happening in time- the rumbling is suddenly all to loud above me. I yank my head up just in time to see a huge chunk of rock break off the ceiling and plummet to Earth- to me. Do something, Mar. Don't just stand! Don't just stand here! Move! I can't. I feel like I'm turned into the same substance as the boulder, watching its almost hypnotic descent. Then it's gone, shattered into a million pieces by some projectile- the very same projectile that loops back around to me. I don't hesitate this time, I leap- from air to air- out of the way, before I see the lumpy face, the beady eyes. It's Five. He defeated the boulder. Good.

He meets my eyes and motions inward and I nod, following his trail.

As we fly into the main cavern again, the roar only gets louder, practically deafening me to anything, except its scream. Rocks and dust break off anything suspended over the air- the roof, the bridges, even some parts of the walls and structural support. That can't be good.

I hear a voice, over the rubble, and I see Five's mouth moving, but I can't make out what he's saying. Holding my hand up to my ear to show that I can't hear him, he rushes over, screaming in it. "WE CAN'T LET THE ROOF FALL IN ON THEM!"

"I KNOW! SHUT UP AND HELP THEM!" I scream back.

He looks off into the distance, seeming to prep himself for something. Then he races upwards, his stony hands finding the ceiling, his flight pushing on it. He's holding up the mountain!

I get what have to do. He's buying me time, but only seconds, really. Only a few more seconds than I already had. Don't waste them thinking, Mar! I shoot down, catching myself halfway down the cavern, searching everything for Garde, running up and down the walls, maybe a flaming John down by the green lava or a floating blaster or two from Six. Nothing, nothing at all except the rocks that still plummet into the ocean of green at the bottom, disturbing it and sending it in waves sloshing upwards.

Then, from one of the corridors branching off, a fiery explosion shoots out, throwing flames into the main chamber. It has to be John, right? That means John and Adam? Maybe even Nine?

As the flames clear, I see a figure step out, scanning the walls, searching for a way forward, since the bridge is gone. I see the long dyed blonde hair tumble forth, and rejoice. It's Six.

I shoot down to her level and land next to her, and she doesn't even question the flying, just hugs me. For a long time, maybe two seconds. That's a long time? Well, with the place coming down around us, it feels like a lifetime.

She meets my eyes, knowing that if she says anything I won't hear. She just points up and shrugs, and in response I lift myself off the ground, floating there for her to see. She gawks, and as I jump down to the ground I rock up, feeling my skin scab over again just to prove the point. She nods, accepting it, and I crouch down for her to jump on my back like John described Five doing.

I feel her weight and shove off, on and up. She points over my head to the roof, where the dark figure is pressed against it. From here I can see the look of exhaustion on Five's face, sweat visible from here, and when he sees me with Six, he nods and looks away, back towards the wall. Focusing.

I drop off Six at the entrance, shouting, "I'll explain later!" before ducking back inside. I'm gonna dive back down, go get the others, when Five falls off the ceiling. He doesn't even try to stop himself, his arms flailing in the air as he plummets.

Now! I grab him with TK and rush him towards me, seeing his face. He's out cold, his eyes closed, his face white and stricken. No time! No time! As I examine him, the roof is falling apart in huge chunks, leaving gaping holes in the top. Get out! Get! Out! GO!

I give the cavern one last look-around, then soar back to the entrance, landing next to where Six plopped down. "Run! Run!" I shout over the roar of the mountain caving in on itself, and she complies, either not noticing Five's face or not questioning my plan.

We flash past the valley where Five explained his life story to me, past this huge rock shaped awkwardly like a turtle, and up on top of this giant overhang with a cave under it.

I drop Five on the ground and watch from the distance as the whole mountain seems to sink into the ground, still perfectly upright, just disappearing beneath the earth. It lurches to a stop, a few hundred feet shorter than it was earlier, and there's a single moment of silence before the surrounding hills of dirt and rock cave in on it, completely burying it under them, erasing it from history.

Bracing. That's what I'm doing, waiting for the scars to come. Two of them. One for John, one for Nine. I try not to picture their faces, bruised and battered, hidden from the world. Buried alive under the ground.

I just stand there, but Six plops down on the ground, throwing a glance at Five, passed out on the ground. Then she looks at me, her face battered and burnt, the edges of her hair singed. That doesn't compare to the look of hurt and angst and confusion on her face, though.

"What happened back there, Marina?" she shouts. "And what's that fucking traitor doing here?" she gestures to Five, not breaking eye contact with me.

"I don't know." my voice is weak, defeated. Still no scars. That gives me hope. Maybe they made it out? Maybe they're already a hundred miles from here? No, that had to be Adam causing that blast. What else would do it, bring the mountain down on itself? And John would never leave Adam. He'd never abandon a friend, would he?

Nine, he went off by himself. Right? Nine was alone. That's how I remember it. No scars. What if they're trapped down there under the dirt, getting their last breathes? What if, even worse, they can live down there? If there's food and water? A world without light and sustenance- that's truly horrific, more than anything else. They could live down there, indefinitely. Dying to starvation and pain, rather than Mog gunfire? That's really the worst way to go.

Six's expression lightens, and I sit down next to her, looking out over the overhang. At the place where the mountain stood, where it now doesn't. "It's not your fault, Marina," she says. "No scars, right?"

"What if they're down there? What if they survived, instead of dying? That'd be worse in my opinion."

"No, I saw John and Adam. Just before you got there. They were running up the side of the wall behind you as you came down to me," she says.

"That's what you were looking at?" I say, astonished.

"Yeah. They got to the antechamber just as you turned around. The one I'm really worried about is Nine…," she trails off. "Where could he have gone?"

"…I don't know…,"

"I know where he went," Five struggles to say. I turn around to find him sitting up, and Six does, too. She tenses and I pull her back from charging at him. "Wow, calm down. He busted through the wall while you all were down there doing your thing. I guess he, like, tunneled his way out or something, I dunno. He couldn't have been more than fifty feet under the surface, the way I saw it. He just, blasted through the wall and shoved himself out, into the ground. It was weird to watch."

"Wait. You saw him?" Six shouts. She grabs Five by his shirt and pins him to the ground.

"I was holding up the goddamn mountain!" he shouts back, then coughs. "There wasn't anything I could do!"

There's a long moment of silence shared by all of us, then Six says, "What caused that whole thing, anyway?"

"It was Adam, wasn't it?" I try.

"No, it couldn't be. He was escaping with John when it was happening."

"Then why did the mountain just go and die?" I say, the question on everyone's minds. For now, at least, we have no answer.


	16. Sixteen- Number Nine

**16-Smells. That's what finally wake me up- the smells all around me. Something grungy and dirty and smells of** sweat and smoke. I peel my eyes open slowly, trying to figure out what they are, the smells penetrating to my core.

It's the ceiling- white and speckled, with a large brownish spot off to the left. I don't know where I am- what happened? It seems like only yesterday we were in the barn…

No. no, there was stuff in between that. We found John and his human crush and that traitor in the making, whatever his name is. The Mog. Frankly, I don't care what his name is. I don't care that his imaginary friend is my species, or the fact that he can conjure earthquakes for some ungodly reason. Just that he's Five all over again. How can the others take so easily to him? And to John and his human herd, for believing his obviously fake story? Can't they see that he's just here to get us!

I propel myself off the bed, hearing a few springs pop underneath me, and extend to my full height in the matter of about a second. My black hair whips forwards, blanketing my eyes unevenly.

I'm stiff, too stiff. Always too stiff, to uptight. I wish it was the good old days again, back when nothing mattered, it was just me and Sandor against a defenseless world. But then I had to go _ruin_ that, didn't I? And Maddy, her and Sandor, dying as I watched!

No. _No_. I screwed myself over because I got _angry_. I got _pissed_, for no reason, and threw what little of a life I had out the hundredth story window. _I can't_ let that happen again. I just can't.

I brush past the bathroom door of this dingy motel room, pushing it aside and hearing its thud against the stone-cold counter. _Dunk_. Then it bounces back, slowly coming to a halt.

Am I really watching doors now? Am I really that way?

The mirror says yes. Peeling my shirt off, I get a look at myself- a farmer's tan, at best. I haven't gotten out as much as I might like in the last few weeks, nothing I can blame on anybody.

Besides that, I'm the epitome of a stoner. The long hair, roughed up and hanging unevenly cut, kinda frizzled from the heat. What is it, April? Shouldn't be this hot anywhere.

The face, pale, not like a Mog, but not like it was a year ago, the time of my life. That and the piercing eyes, feeling and peeling me apart from the outside in. They're my eyes, so they know my secrets. They're mine, so they've seen what I've seen. They saw Maddy get eaten. They saw Sandor's heart stop. They _saw_ Eight jump in the way of that _fucking_ traitor, saw him sacrifice himself to save me.

The glass shatters, splintering into a million shiny fragments. That's not the funny thing, though- I don't even wince at it. My telekinesis is stronger now, stronger than it's ever been. My reflexes and focus and _ motivation_ are stronger, too. I've never been better.

Is that really true? _Is it, Number Nine? Is it?_ The others abandoned me in that mountain as it came down- why the hell did it even come down? Was it the traitor? Did he not even care that I was _in there_? Did he finally make his move against us, like I said he would? I have no doubts. No Mog can be good; only tiers of evil, none of them being good.

It can't matter now. They left me here, for whatever reason. I don't even know who's on my side anymore- Six and Seven were going to leave me in the barn, John has sided with a Mog, and Eight died saving me. That's all my friends, right? Right?

I glance down to the counter, where the white tablet from the human's dad's house sits, charging. _That's right_. I never trusted the humans with it. I took it because I knew they would betray me, and now I have the only device in the universe that knows where I am.

I'm going to be a ninja. I'm going to strike fast and hard at the arteries of the Mogadorian Empire, and no one will ever see it coming.

I tap the screen and it comes to life. I see three dots clustered together, heading northwest ino Pennsylvania at remarkable speed. As I stand here and observe, they cross into New Jersey and zip right through New York, blazing a trail that must be at least several hundred miles per hour.

My first though, of course, is _How in the hell?_ But then I remember that I don't care about them. I don't care about the other solitary blue dot that found itself solitary, alone, a few hundred miles from the West Virginian border, deep in Kentucky. Then there's the one that was in Washington- _obviously Five's_- moving slowly, crawling across the screen towards West Virginia. Seriously, it's a snail's pace compared to the three dots currently breaking off and shooting like bullets over the Atlantic Ocean, after taking an abrupt right in New England.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was Five. But no, that's the dot heading to check out whatever the hell we just did to his _Bullshit Palace _in the side of his mountain. The one scooting so elegantly by me, camped out in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Some dingy motel that I didn't even get the name of last night, just snuck in the back and took a vacant room. Not like they're gonna fill it during the night.

Wait. If it's Five, why isn't he flying, then?

Ugh. My head hurts. I switch the screen off and lay it down on the counter again, and think something about brushing my teeth. _Naw, I'm fine_, is what I think when I smile as big as I can at myself in the mirror. They're fine. A little yellow and a little crooked, but nothing too much of a problem.

What I need now is a plan. Something to look forward too. No, not exactly that…

Some sort of thing to, you know, plan all my steps towards. It's always been uniting with the other Garde, but they don't seem to like me too much, right?

I mean, I guess Seven and Six weren't going to abandon be _exactly_. They were just standing up for themselves, right? Against me? Yeah, because I'm a dickhead. Right.

Who was always the only Garde who was your friend? Well, not your only friend, I guess. John-boy was always nice, so was Seven. But Seven's nice to everybody. Six was a rival, I guess you could call her that. But it was Eight- Eight who helped me, was my friend. I guess you could call him that.

I guess a lot of things.

If only I could bring him back. He died. Saving _me_. I'll never be able to live with myself knowing that- hell, I can't live with myself now!

God. I need to get my shit together. Everyone else has their plan- glancing back down and flicking the tablet back on, I see the three dots are already halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. They're going places, big time, to do big things. And I'm sitting here, vegging, trying to soak up self-pity.

What a brat.

I stalk out of the hotel bathroom, sauntering towards the window. I mean to go look out of it, but I catch myself in the mirror by the bed instead.

It looks no different than the one in the bathroom. Except I'm not standing at attention here, I'm slogging my way forward. I need to stop that, to stand up more. To stand up straight, to not look like I'm pissed off all the time. I drove the Garde off, right? But I can make it better.

Yeah. I can make it better. Because everything in my life _always_ gets better in the end.

Yup.

I flop back down on the bed again, staring up at the ceiling.

I need a plan. Direction. Something to look forward too.

Maybe I should reconnect with the Garde? Maybe the one in Kentucky, whichever one that is? From there, we can move forward.

But what about Eight? What about him?

I know Seven thinks I didn't see. I know she thinks I don't know, but I do. I was awake when she pulled me from the fire, but too weak to do anything. I saw whatever she did to Six, I felt the scar, I felt it cut off. I know she has the power.

She _has the power I need_.

To bring back Eight? Yeah. To undo the wrongs I've done to him- his death is all on me, on my hands. Me egging that little bitch slut on, to his breaking point and beyond.

Yeah. Seven has the power. To do what, exactly, that is the question, but it's powerful. It's a game changer. It can fix all the wrongs that have been done to us. What is it, anyway? I could see her standing over Six, I felt the scar, heard her scream. What is the power?

I scoff. She can't really bring back the dead, can she? That'd be too easy.

Way too easy. There's a catch. Somewhere. There's always a catch. Maybe she has limited fires, maybe she blacks out after using it. Something. The superhero's greatest power is always limited. The superpower is always undoable.

There's a catch.

But I still find myself holding on to that hope that there's no catch, that we get unlimited chances.

But that's just not how it works.

Nevertheless, I've got to find out. That's my plan- find the others. I know, just a minute ago, I was plotting their downfall. But back in reality-land, I've got to have direction, a step-by-step plan forward, because I never have before.

Find the Garde. Find Seven. Find out what's really going on.

Yup. Sounds like a plan.

With that, I fly off the bad again. I better get moving to catch the dude in Kentucky before he moves again.


	17. Seventeen- The Message

17- The Macrocosm is the only light in the room. It glows with blue light, its solar system slowly revolving around its center, the planets blocking out any view of the opposite wall.

I'm here, laying down under it, looking up through it at the ceiling, at the gleaming white rafters way up high. I hear a bird chirping from somewhere- I guess it flew in when we broke in.

It's a warehouse. Not really abandoned, just empty for the time being. I guess, because it's so new looking, no rust or paint chipping, for the most part.

Adam leans against a stack of wooden boxes in front of me, his face a mask of contemplation. He's looking into the macrocosm, too, quizzing me about how it works and what it does.

We don't actually have the chests, those are with Sarah and Sam, wherever they ended up. I hear that they had to evacuate the town we sent them in when the mountain imploded. The earthquakes ripped it pretty much to shreds.

I just have my macrocosm because I had this feeling that something would go wrong… you know? You get a bad feeling, before you do something. Right in the heart of your gut somewhere. Well, it turns out I was right.

"So, when you shine your lumen on the planet, it actually turns lush again?" Adam inquires.

"Yeah," I reach up, through its blue aura and to the miniature Lorien ball, all black and cinder-like. My hands come on- I hardly have to command them anymore, they just sense what I want them to do. Instantly, the planet glows bright green, and on the reverse side from the Loric sun it lights up with little yellow dots all across it. Cities, towns. All gone today.

"Wicked," he chuckles. "So, when somebody has a communication rock, or whatever you call it, they can talk into it?"

"Yes. It happened with Marina and us when she was under attack in Spain, and when they were attacked in India. As long as you hold the rock, anything you hear or say is transmitted."

"Really? Anything you hear?"

"Yup. Nine and I heard the explosions from the rockets hitting Six's and Marina's SUV."

Adam stops, scowling. He does that a lot, too much. He should be happier. We all should, I guess.

"Wait. If you can only contact it with the rocks, and the rocks are in the chests, then how is it going to work? It's not like Malcolm can open them."

"I don't know," I answer, shaking my head, feeling it rattle against the concrete. "It just seems right. Like we're meant to be here, to see something."

"Yeah, really meant to see something. It's not like we've been staring at this thing all day or anything…," he trails off. He's right, though. We went out and checked to see if the sun had risen up a while ago. It had already tracked its way a quarter of the way across the sky, hinting that it was around nine, the day after the mountain exploded.

We're actually in Louisville, or rather, on the very edge. Some industrial district. It's a miracle we made it this far- Adam on my back, after all. Yeah. That was awkward. I know I'll never see anyone I saw again on the run, even if I _had_ seen someone. Still. Just awkward.

I wish we had a computer somewhere. We could be monitoring for where the Garde might be, checking the news stories for anything. We need to come back together, now more than ever. The war is more intense now than it ever was, only less than the night Lorien fell.

Sometimes, when I'm staring unblinking into the Loric sun, I drift off, and when I do, I can sense all the Mogs around me. In Louisville, in the state, all around. Crawling across the planet like parasites, plotting their next move. I know that they think we're almost extinguished, just four more to go and then we'll be one less problem, right? One less obstacle on their endless trek to conquer Earth.

I'm interrupted in my thought by the macrocosm. It moves. _Moves_. The planets speed up, revolving faster and faster, like it always does.

I jump up, going right through its halo and stepping back, away, to observe it. Adam reaches onto the box next to him, where one of the transmission rocks, Marina's, glows bright blue. I told her I'd get it back to her after we all came out of the mountain all right, that it was just a precaution.

"Is that it doing its thing!" Adam shouts over nothing. It doesn't make a sound, but his excitement echoes through the warehouse anyway.

"Yeah!" I exclaim. "Did the others find Sam and Malcolm?"

"I dunno!" The planets keep going, crashing into each other one by one. Then it expands outwards, explosively, becoming the size of a couch floating in front of me.

The map of Earth appears slowly, almost as if loading itself. One more second reveals a single blue dot, resting- in Europe? That can't be right.

"Hello! Hello! Who is this!" Adam yells into the blue stone. All he gets in response is a low rumbling, obviously coming from the Earth, as it grows fuzzy as it growls. It's like West Virginia all over again.

Then a voice blasts over it.

"Help! Help! John, Nine, anybody! We need help!" It's Six. How…

"Number Six! Is that you?" Adam.

He doesn't get an answer, just Six talking over him. "We're here, a long way from where you guys are, I bet, and we need your help! Get over here! Now!" She pauses. Then, "I can tell somebody can here this because the _damn rock is blue!_"

"I shout over to Adam, but more towards the rock, so she can hear me. "Six! Six! What's going on! How do you have a rock?"

It's like she can't even hear me, just keeps screaming.

"Guys, we need you!" Then she stops talking to us, I guess, but keeps the rock clenched in her grasp. "Guys, that's the best I can do! We just gotta hold out!"

"There's a billion Mogodorians behind the door, though!" I know that voice. That almost childish, yet deep-enough voice to be a young man. _How is Six near Five? How can Six possibly be working with him_?

"Six, is that Five! How can he be there!" No answer. Of course.

"Just keep checking the bodies!" Marina, I think. Her voice is faint, far off. She ties to say something more, but it's overshadowed by what sounds like, I don't even know. Like ice cracking, to be honest. Like it always does in movies, then the ice cracks, it releases that deep, resonant tone?

"Faster!" Marina again. "They've gotta be here somewhere!" _What has to be there_?

"Wait! What about that door!" Five. It sounds… almost… like he's helping? I can't believe that, not for a second. How could he help, after all he's done?

"What door?"

"That one!"

Then there's an explosion, followed by more ice-cracking sounds. I just focus in on the blue dot, somewhere in Turkey, I'm guessing, and listen.

"Woah!" One of the girls exclaims. "Is that… them?"

"We've gotta get them down!"

"Here, I got it!" It sounds like there's two cracks of a whip or something, followed by the fizz that you hear after you pour a new soda.

"Each grab one, okay?"

"Gotcha!"

"Marina, get the door!" Five. There's a slamming sound, and what sounds like ice solidifying around something. Like the cracking. Similar.

"Six, leave the rock! You're gonna need both hands!"

"We've gotta let them know where we are, though!"

"Then put it in your pocket or something, grab a body, and _fly_!" Five screams.

"Up through the ceiling?" She shouts back.

"It worked in West Virginia, right?"

After that, the transmission cuts out, the Earth shrinking and the planets reappearing.

"What. The. Actual. Hell. Just happened?" Adam is speechless, just gawking at the macrocosm. The whole warehouse is suddenly silent in comparison to the rumbling and screaming from a second ago.

"I don't even know…," he says after a moment.

We're both speechless, just staring at it, at the Loric sun as it sits there innocently, glowing its brightness and blueness in my face.

After, maybe fifteen minutes of silence, the Earth reforms, the dot again appearing, maybe in northern Greece. It's definitely moved since I last saw it.

"Okay, whoever's listening, John, Nine, whatever. I'll fill you in when we reunite. Just, watch the internet. I can't tell you what I'll do when we need to meet up, because the Mogs have Five's macrocosm. Just… you'll know what I'm talking about. And it won't be a crop circle, I promise."

"What if you've been talking to the Mogs the whole time?" Marina says. She's out of breath.

"Yeah," Five utters his agreement.

"Well, then fuck all of you. Every single one of you. Got that? Because we're going to kill all of you, okay? Good. Number Six. Out."

And with that, the globe deflates for the second time today.

**_ Hey people! Yeah, chapter press, am I right? Haha, I want to try and get one out every day, maybe every other. When time allows it, right? Kay. _**

**_Anyway._**

**_ Ten points to whoever can piece together what just happened. Let's play clue, how bout it._**


	18. Eighteen- The City with the Walls

**_I'm sorry- to all of the fans of this fanfic. I made a promise I couldn't keep, and that was to upload every day, or at least, every other. I hope this hasn't changed things._**

**_ Without further ado, Eighteen!_**

****18- We shoot like streaks across the sky, the Sea of Mamara stretching out infinitely below us. It really is Mediterranean Blue, just like it was back in Spain.

Spain. My home? Hardly. And yet, so much so. I spend the majority of my life within its borders, and yet, trapped the whole time. My home, Lorien, is out there, in the sky. The place my eyes gravitate to when I look up. And it needs help. And that's what we're here to do.

We flew over Spain on our way here- about an hour ago, travelling high above supersonic with Five's power. We hardly spent more than two or three hours on the open ocean, and before that we were in West Virginia, regrouping.

None of us know what happened back there, and I'm not sure I want to. The only thing that matters is that we won a consequential battle, the Garde United, we took out a huge Mogodorian Training Facility- that's what Five says it was, anyway- and we made it out without casualties.

That's all that matters, right? Then why am I still so concerned with it?

We agreed back before we took flight that we would return to the States after we have the dead Garde.

They're in that city, down below. That one rising over the horizon, moving like a speeding conveyor belt up to greet us. Down there somewhere.

Maybe Eight's there. I could have…

No. I can't get my hopes up. But I want him to be… So badly…

_No_. He's either there or not, and so are One, Two, and Three.

But they are there. They will be there. They have to be there.

_We can't do this with just the five of us. We need numbers, we need backup. We need the Lorien Nine_.

"Guys!" Five shouts. I turn to look, but don't say anything. "Guys! Don't you think we, should… I dunno, turn invisible or something?"

"Good call! Get closer to me, grab my hands!" She yells into the wind. I drift closer, groping out to my side for it. Feeling… feeling… There it is. I grab it- it's soft and yet, rough at the same time, like always- and a few seconds pass, then the tip of my nose disappears. So do my eyelashes- pretty much everything I can usually see by looking straight ahead.

We're invisible.

"Let's start slowing down!" She screams. "Now!" My grip on her hand becomes strained, and I take that to mean that she slowed down, so I do the same.

The city is just below us now, the main part, the Walled City, or so I hear it's called, slipping by, slower and slower. "Let's just ease down there somewhere!" Five doesn't have to shout so loud anymore- in fact, hardly at all. We aren't really moving anymore, I'm still in the air solely because I'm supporting myself with TK- and unconscious reaction. Guess it comes from the flying- maybe that's some sort of extension of the TK.

It's like one of those Lunar Lander games Nine showed me back in Chicago- land on the rooftop, not in the street, _definitely_ not on the sidewalks. And be quiet about it- don't attract attention to an open space in the sky.

"_Over there- to the right- no, down a little… no…,"_ Five directs Six, who pretty much has control of the situation, being in the middle and all. "Ooof!"

We land unceremoniously on the roof of a random building, plopping down. There's a crashing sound, and right next to me a foot-sized hole breaks into the building, sending splinters falling down below. Six curses under her breath.

"I was trying not to do that…," She flashes visible, and so do we, my eyelashes returning to me.

I point to the corner of the structure, where a staircase leads downwards. "Maybe we go over there?"

Six nudges me. "Good idea."

"So like, where in the city is the base, even?" I quiz Five.

"Dunno," he mumbles, absentmindedly. We're hiding out behind one of the stalls in the Grand Bazaar, the vendor must've gone away somewhere. He looks around, listlessly, eyeing the huge cloth that separates us from the mobs of people walking by outside.

This whole place has that kind of old vibe to it- the ceilings are high and vaulted, these columns hold everything up, thin at the bottom and sloping up gradually to the top. Most of them have eagles or other animals, like lions, carved into the base.

The cloth is made of some kind of foreign silk, it to floating around listlessly, not with nervousness, but with the breezes from outside and the passing people- thousands of them.

The Mogs could be anywhere.

I have no doubt they're in the city somewhere- Five described it as, what was it… A PUT. Prime Urban Target. One of the first cities to go once the Mogs got us, according to their plan.

"What do you mean? You told us that it was in Istanbul, we flew to Istanbul. What more do you want?" Six snaps.

He raises his hands in surrender. "Hey, the place was under construction, remember? I never visited or anything, just heard Ra talking about it."

I roll my hands for emphasis as I say, "And he said…,"

"I don't know," he shakes his head sadly. "I remember the Beloved Leader talking quite a bit about the Hagia Sofia, if it's any conciliation."

Six's jaw drops. "Are you saying we need to assault the Hagia Sofia? That thing as stood for a thousand years, the centerpiece of like, three religions!"

"Like I said, I only heard him talk about it," he sighs. "If we could just find some kind of Mog Forward Base, then we could ask them…"

"Hold up. Ask them?"

"Yeah, they're not gonna let us waltz in," I concur.

"No, I didn't mean that, I meant if we could just, find them, and…," he trails off.

"Torture them, you mean?"

He glares at her. "Yeah. I guess so."

Six holds her hands up in surrender. "Woah, remember, you're with us now, right? Not with the _dearly Beloved_, right?"

"Whatever," he closes up, done talking.

Six tries to revive him. "This Forward Base… where could it be?"

He looks completive, either thinking about where it is or whether to join back in on the conversation. He comes up with an answer to both. "Dunno. I remember the one from London was in a downtown skyscraper, so it could be anywhere. The only way to know for sure would be to-,"

"To turn ourselves in," I finish his sentence. We all are silent after that, thinking about the reward, the risks. And while we do that, the curtain shakes once, twice, then draws back into the wall.

I'm shocked, jumping up in an instant, the air chilling around us. But it's only some Turkish dude, with his giant head beehive- Turban, sorry. He looks confused, and studies us for a second, before saying something in a language I don't know.

"Sir? I don't know what you're saying," Six announces, matter-of-fact like. I try something else.

"Ermmm… Señor? No sé. Hablamos inglés y español," I try.

He still looks at us blankly. Guess that didn't work. He coos at us weirdly, smiling, before opening his arms to us in a gesture of welcome. "American… tourists!" he smiles, looking to each one of us questionably, maybe worried he didn't get the right words.

"Yes!" Six moves forward, towards him, and Five stands up from his slouch. "Sir, can I ask you something?"

He stares at her for a while, forming the sentence. "Yes. What is it you seek? Perhaps some tapestries, from the land of Persia, hmm?"

"No, we're looking for someone," she speaks slowly, carefully. "He's tall, bulky, bald, really white skin, looks like a snake in some respects?"

"Madam, I know not what you are saying… You mean you are looking for a man?"

I get what she's doing. She just described your average Vatborn Soldier to the vendor, and she's seeing what he says.

"Yes, sir."

"Hmmmm…. Yes, maybe I have seen a man of those traits," he begins. "I've seen him in a lot of places, actually…," he breaks to scratch his curly beard, then continues. "You could say I see him on a daily basis, all over town. He sure does get around. Now, you are familiar with this man, yes?"

My heart sinks. They're not all the same guy. They're all different vatborns. All over the city. I had no idea about the extent of the Mogs' control over the city, that it reached so far.

"Does he hang around anywhere?" I blurt out, but he just stares at me. Must not know what hang around means. "I mean, where do you see him the most often?"

"Well, I suppose… downtown, far downtown, near the _Ayasofia_, I would say."

"_Ayasofia_?"

"Oh, I forget that you Americans call it something else. Err… Sofia?"

Six claps him on the back, and he's obviously taken aback by how strong her grip is. "That's all we need to know. Thank you, sir," she she walks out. I jump out after her, Five on my heels, while the Vendor shouts something about payment for his services after us.


End file.
